The Burning
by Queen of Corners
Summary: AU. In the wake of a difficult life, a young boy makes a choice to leave the safety of his home behind as he embarks on a journey to Aincrad, the place where Heroes are born. All does not go according to plan.
1. Prologue: The Blazing Inferno

**Author's Note: **Hello and welcome! This is my second work in the SAO fandom, but, as you will see, it differs from canon drastically. The only warnings I can give you is that this is an Alternate Universe in every sense of the word and that there could be some Phantom Bullet, Mother's Rosario and Alicization spoilers in relation to the characters.

The purpose of this fic is the worldbuilding and the aspects that go along with it, but that doesn't mean the characters will be taking the backseat. Don't be surprised if character roles are a bit different that they used to be. Whichever way you look at it, I'll be doing my best to keep them close to their canon personalities.

* * *

Dim orange streetlights lit up the deserted street. The houses in the neighborhood were old and rundown, rooftops covered in a thin layer of snow. There was a single old truck parked at the side of the road, casting an eerie shadow on the road covered in slosh and mud.

Two cloaked, hooded figures ran down the street, the muddy path barely slowing them down. They ran until they reached the very end of the road, a place with scarcely any house and large surfaces of cultivable land in between. They stopped abruptly once they reached the the final streetlamp, the surface ahead of them lost under the shadow of the night. This was where the road ended and a small, kilometer wide area known as the Fields began.

Akemi, Lady Akemi Akari of Algade, wife of Royal Prince Daisuke Akari of Algade, let out a shuddering exhale, brushing a stray strand of hair from her face. She removed the hood, revealing a young face with ashen skin, dry lips and dark circles around her sharp bluish eyes. Peering ahead, she hoped to discern the forest that existed beyond the vast darkness of the Fields, with little success.

"This is it."

Her voice was raspy and breathing labored, lungs burning from the long run much more than her muscles. Now that she was no longer moving, her entire body was shaking from the cold. There were too many different feelings strangling her under the surface, too many burdens placed on her shoulders, too many expectations and hopes weighing on her conscience, placed there by the people of Algade and by her own ambitious self.

She could not fail.

"Milady, are you certain about this?" her faithful companion asked, observing the Fields with the same unrest as hers, same uncertainty and same fear.

The Fields at the northern edges of the Algade jurisdiction were by no means easy to travel. Deceptively flat, even by daylight, people who threaded there went carefully, watchful of any unseen holes, lost under the thick green grass, a grass that remained that way throughout the entire year. Thin half-melted layer of snow was certainly not an improvement and in the cover of darkness, spotting any uneven parts was going to be even more of a demanding task. It would be a miracle, certainly, if they passed through the Fields unharmed.

Akemi crouched, putting a small body that she had been carrying on her back on the ground briefly, taking care that the only part of it that touched the muddy road were the shoes.

"Milady, if you need help—"

"It won't be necessary," Akemi said, her breathing finally beginning to calm down. She picked up the tiny body with one arm, lifting it up in the air even as the head immediately fell on her shoulder. Two tiny hands wrapped around her neck. Her free hand brushed through the hair and came up wet.

Biting her lip, she said, "On the second thought, could you hold him for a moment, please?"

He looked to her with wide eyes, barely visible under his hood, then to the small boy, his expression that of surprise, shock. For a mere guard, although a member of her personal guard, taking a child of the royalty in his hands must have been an incredible honor. Thankfully, he appeared to understand that the last thing on her mind were improper social customs.

Tensing when she softly broke out of the tiny hug, the little boy's head came to rest on the guard's shoulder, arms wrapping around his neck.

Akemi brushed her fingers through his hair, coming to rest on his cheek, her expression pained.

"It's no good, Minetaka," she said softly as tears welled up in her eyes. She blinked them away before they fell. "He needs a healer. I don't know how much of the poison got to him, if any, but he's feverish. He's barely eaten anything for two days and now this happened."

"Milady, there are doctors back in the city. If we head there now, we may still make it in time."

With a frown, the Princess of Algade glanced back in the direction from which they'd come from, a tower of smoke rising in the distance.

"I don't have faith in doctors. And either way, there is no more time to go back."

Her hand once again brushed the boy's face. Against his black hair and flushed cheeks, the rest of the skin was ghastly, sickish. It would have been obvious to even the youngest child that something was wrong.

"We've been followed. Our only means of escape is the forest and the Fields are our best weapons. They are not from around here, they do not expect the danger they pose."

"I must disagree. The Fields, especially now, are as dangerous for as they are dangerous for them—"

"Is there any other way?" Akemi yelled.

Minetaka flinched back, whether from the strength of her voice or the tears going down her face, she did not know. She did not care.

"I already lost my husband tonight, Minetaka. Don't make me lose my son."

He bowed his head, in compliance or in shame, she did not care. Breathing in the large amounts of cold air, Akemi felt her temper beginning to fall back under control, her outrageous heartbeats beginning to calm down.

"Give him to me," she ordered and, by this point he knew not to object. Once again she hoisted the sleeping boy over her back, placing his tiny hands around her neck. "Let's move. The last scout we've dispatched had been a hundred meters behind. No doubt another one is coming and will be on to us soon, if not an entire unit."

She moved into position, but noticed then, that Minetaka had not made a single step, his eyes focused on something behind her. Worried, Akemi shifted and saw what was wrong. Instead of one tower of smoke in the distance, there were now dozens, some of them closer, much closer than they had any right to be.

"They've torched it," Minetaka whispered, but there was no surprise in his voice, only pain and acceptance. "They've torched everything."

"They have not," the First Lady of Algade said firmly, looking at the rising smoke with distaste. "They have hurt us. They have burned us. But they have not defeated us yet. They will never burn Algade to ground. What they're burning are strategic locations and homes of the most loyal Lords, but all that can be recovered with time. It can be rebuilt. Algade has survived worse."

"But it has never lost its monarchs. Not this way."

"No," she agreed somberly. "No, it has not."

"Milady…"

"I believe I have already asked you many, many times not to call me that way."

"Yes, you have."

Akemi leveled him with a look and he didn't, as she'd half expected him to, step away or relent. He understood as well as she did that only one of them would get out of this alive. There was no need for such courtesy. She only wished she knew why he'd kept to it anyway.

"Let's go," she said as her eyes focused on the newest rise of smoke, possibly less than a kilometer away. "They must have the cavalry on their way. Exterminating the last of the Royal Family is quite possibly their primary goal this night."

Minetaka nodded and, without any given sign, without forewarning, they broke into a run, passing the unspoken border between the rural part of Algade and into the Fields. Their steps were synchronized fast and focused, their honed reflexes enabling them to escape the worst of the uneven and deceptive land. Multiple times, however, their foot would happen to fall through and sink into the deep grass. At times, it was into a hole that made no significant difference, but at others, it would make them falter, even collapse. Akemi lost count of how many times she'd ended up on her knees, how many times she'd gasped in pain when she ended up twisting her ankle again and again. It was the same for Minetaka, she could tell by labored breathing and sharp intakes of breath whenever he slowed down.

They had no armor, no weapons and no means of getting away other than running. The attack that had unexpectedly come in the middle of the night had been quick and brutal and even now there were still battles going on in the castle, between the guards that remained and the enemies who had attacked. Despite all the instincts screaming at her to go back and fight, Akemi could not do that. She had her responsibility as a Royal, but even more than that, her responsibility as a mother. Her son had to stay safe. She would stop at nothing to accomplish that.

They were perhaps a quarter of the way through when, in the deathly silence, they heard a whistle. It was a sound in the distance, the very limit of rural Algade. Akemi turned. In the faint light coming from the city, she could see several horsemen and perhaps a dozen more soldiers carefully traipsing over the grassy surface. She could see even more rushing to join them.

"They're really going all out," she noted with a morbid, deceptively cruel smile on her lips.

"Milady—"

"We must move faster!"

Minetaka didn't respond, rushing to catch up to her as she accelerated, but it was obvious that, sooner or later, battle would become their only means of escape. Akemi just hoped they would not have to engage them before they reached the forest.

The forest beyond the fields was perhaps an even more dangerous area than the Fields. It was a hunting area Akemi had visited multiple times, inhabited by boars, bears and even an occasional pack of white wolves, but they all lived further north. If luck was on their side this night, then they would not have to go in so deep. Another good side of the forest was the fact that, if there was any place where they could possibly lose the scouts and the soldiers, it was there.

Her own capability of navigating through the forest was scarcely better than abysmal, though Minetaka excelled at it. It was part of the reason she'd insisted of him to follow her without risking going to the armory when they'd left the castle. If somebody could help her pull off the scheme she had in mind, it was him.

She assumed that his knowledge of the area was the reason he kept leading her forward, through the forest and into the thick darkness once they finally breached the border.

While the Fields were the northern border of Algade in all but the land ownership, the true border, the very end of Algade's district and jurisdiction was the Forest of Cedar, the largest forest in the Northern Limits. It spread over the entire central area of the region. If one wanted to travel from Algade to City of Lindas up north, even in a roundabout way, they had to pass through the Forest of Cedar. The same went for all the other towns and cities up north. It was a sacred border which, by old legends, was not meant to be crossed by the Royal Family, no matter the circumstance. Such belief had, throughout history, ended the lives of many Royals, but not being a Royal by birth, Akemi felt no such restrictions placed upon her.

"Stop!" she ordered, when everything she could see around her was darkness, no longer capable of discerning even the shadows. The only way she knew that Minetaka had obeyed her command had been by her hearing. "Minetaka?"

"Yes?"

"Come here, take Kazuto for a moment."

"We must hurry, Milady. The stream is nearby, it leads east. Nobody will suspect that we've headed there, there are only small villages, too far from the Forest."

"You can see better in the dark, can you not? Just take him."

Minetaka clamped his mouth shut and she felt it when the boy was lifted away from her shoulders. She closed her eyes momentarily, holding her right hand out.

A burst of orange light appeared millimeters above her palm and a soft flame that was lit up the area. She could see Minetaka clearly now, his hood having fallen away, revealing his young, sweat covered face. Short dark hair was dripping wet, lips as dry as her own. The cloak she'd gotten along the way had been a size too small for him, though it only made him look as if he had more prominent muscles than he really did.

The only thing he had in common with her son was the jet black hair. Hopefully, it would be enough.

"We have a few minutes at most, assuming that they cross the Fields at about same pace as we did and spread around to search for us," she said as she brought the flame nearly to the ground, making it grow just a little as she searched for something, anything that could possibly work as a torch. "That should be more than enough."

"Milady, what are you intending to do?" Minetaka asked. If she hadn't known him any better she would have thought he was terrified.

"You'll see," she replied cryptically when she finally located a thick enough branch. It was wet, naturally, given the snowy weather these past few weeks, but it would have to do.

She used the strength she still had in her arms to rip away a part of her already ruined cloak, letting the flame die out and darkness envelop them again as she wrapped the cloth around its pike, tying it the best she could given the poor conditions. When assured that the cloth wasn't going to just fall off, she let the flame burn in her hand again, allowing her to see.

Her handmade, improvised torch was not going to last, that could be seen even before she brought the flame to cloth, waiting for it to catch the fibers. It was tedious, because using too much power would burn the entire branch and she did not have the time to look for another one, but the small flame was having difficulties making the drained cloth burn.

When it finally succeeded, she handed the branch over to Minetaka, taking off her cloak and throwing it down on the wet, snow covered grass. The cold air suddenly became several times colder, but Akemi suppressed her shudders as she took her son from Minetaka's arms and placed him on the still dry part of the cloak.

"Warn me if you see anybody," she ordered.

"What are you doing?"

"Do you remember my affinities?"

Minetaka hesitated. "Fire and… abilities related to the mind."

"I'm afraid nothing that flashy," Akemi said and a sad smile graced her features. "It is what happens when stories get blown out of proportions. It gives a wrong idea of what you can really do with your powers. No doubt a good thing, in this case."

"Milady—"

"My powers are specifically related to fire and memories. The latter is something I practiced scarcely, because… Well, you already know the story of my family's beliefs about memories bring sacred. Any tempering with them is a grave sin."

"You were still outcast because of it," he noted in low voice.

"Among other things, yes. Regardless, I do have some control of what I can do. While creating fake images in somebody's mind is beyond me, obscuring it, hiding it in a shroud of mist is something I am very much capable of. I think you may have witnessed as much."

Akemi was not looking at him any longer, her eyes on the sleeping form of her son, a smile on her lips, a smile of happiness to see that he was still alive, but also that of sadness, because of what she knew was going to wait for him in the future. She wiped away a stray tear as she began speaking again, her voice growing hoarse with every word spoken.

"My Kazuto… my boy is strong. The sleeping powder I gave him before we moved out should have knocked him out for several hours. You saw it, too, though, didn't you? The way he kept clinging to us… he's still living through it. Seeing one person die is enough to break somebody, but he's seen dozens and… and… he has only broken once… once Daisuke…"

She found that she couldn't go on, the pain she'd been holding back rising to the surface, the grief she had not had the time to feel before finally beginning to take over her senses.

"A child… shouldn't live through something like that… he's but a boy, barely five… nobody had any right to do this to him…"

"Milady…"

Akemi did not turn, she feared the judgment in his eyes. What she was intending to do was, by Royal standards, an acceptable action under the circumstances, but Kirigaya Minetaka had been adopted into the Yagami family when he'd married Yagami Midori. He understood their principles and beliefs, if nothing else, thus he was viable to judgment, the same judgment the rest of them would give. And it was a judgment she could not face at present.

"I have to…" Akemi sobbed, touching Kazuto's forehead with her index finger as soft white light began to glow under it. "I have to, because… because I can't let anyone see that look in his eyes. A child broken beyond repair, it is something that must never happen, not to him, not to my boy, my only boy…"

"Akemi—"

The glow intensified, taking away what little tension there had been visible on Kazuto's face, leaving behind a peaceful expression, but she did not stop yet.

"Akemi," Minetaka tried again, his voice stronger this time. "Don't tell me that what you're doing—"

"I'm doing the only thing I can. I'm taking his pain away."

"Akemi," this time sharper, with anger seeping through, "you can't—"

"I don't have a choice," she cut him off and the glow behind her finger finally stopped. "But he's strong, perhaps too strong. He'll remember, eventually. Whether he'll be strong enough, I… I can't…" she shook her head. "You must promise me, Minetaka—"

"No—"

"You must promise me that, when the memories come flooding back—"

"No, you can't ask that of me—"

"—you'll be there to help him—"

"Akemi, damn it—"

"Promise me!" she screamed, glaring at him while her eyes filled with tears that started running down her face and chin. "We both knew that once we got into this forest, only one of us was going to walk out alive. You don't have the power to hold them off long enough for me to find my way. I am too much of a public face, either way. Wherever I go, I'll be recognized instantly and… and they'll know we're alive. They'll never stop hunting us. But… you have a family you have to go back to. Midori and Suguha… what will they do without you? I know that what I am asking for is too much, but please… you're the only chance he has."

Akemi looked in his eyes, not as the Princess, but as the mother that she really was and she saw his fists clenched to the point where his knuckles were white, teeth gritted and eyes filled with emotion. A parent himself, he understood well what it was taking her to ask something like that.

"Please," she begged. "That devotion and loyalty you feel towards me, use it to help him. Instead of dying to protect me, live in order to help him. You're the only one I could possibly ever trust with something like this."

"Your father will never accept it," he said softly.

"I know. He's given up on me a long time ago."

The words were followed by a shuffle in the distance and Minetaka knelt to her and Kazuto, putting the torch close enough so she could immediately suffocate the flame. For several brief moments, the only thing she could hear was the sound of her own breathing, until finally, there was the shuffling again. It was not close, not enough for them to be spotted yet, but just from the sound of it, the number of enemies they were dealing with had well surpassed the estimated proportions.

The Lady, the Princess of Algade, of the entire Northern Limits region, could only barely make out Minetaka's silhouette when she wrapped Kazuto in the remains of her cloak and passed him into his arms.

"Take him, go! Head east. I'll go reach the stream and try to lure them west."

"You're not stupid, Akemi, I know you can get out of this alive."

"It is nice to know that somebody has so much faith in me."

"You're already a living _legend, _if there is anyone—"

"Go, before they find us."

"You must _live,_ Akemi. If there's anyone who can do it—"

"Just go!" she hissed and, by the sounds she heard, he obeyed. It was only the trick of her mind, the silent prayer she'd heard before the sound of him completely vanished.

"I heard something!"

The shout came from maybe two, three trees away from her, much too close for comfort. There was no light, but they probably had some way of navigating through the darkness, a way she had not yet discovered, not that she needed it for what she had in mind.

She materialized yet another flame in her hand, lighting up the space around.

The enemy who had spotted her must have been turning the other way, because nobody seemed to have noticed it yet. That was her cue.

Breaking out of the cover of the tree, she took off running as fast as she could without letting any of the logs or roots get in her way. Without the cloak, running was becoming a much simpler action, her plain white shirt and short black skirt allowing for much more movement than the cloak had. She jumped over every obstacle in her path, sliding down the muddy slope rather than attempting to keep her balance as she ran. A small branch made a shallow cut over her tight and Akemi grit her teeth. It was pain that she could take.

"This way!" she heard a yell, followed by sounds of running footsteps and horse gallop coming from several different directions.

They had her surrounded.

Akemi wondered why the thought no longer scared her as much. The fact that her son was now in safe hands was a part of it, perhaps, but it was not just that. Battle was where she felt comfortable, a place where she felt she belonged. It was something she was familiar with and something she could keep under control, so it did not scare her that she had already signed her death contract.

She reached the stream, a tiny opening in the forest path, a surface of clear water no more than a meter wide, even less than that deep. She could see there, because there was the opening in the sky and the dark clouds were finally beginning to disperse. Behind one of the smaller, but still dark enough clouds, there was the soft silver glow of moonlight, the tiny bead of light reflected in the crystal clear water.

The enemies, the soldiers chasing after her had finally reached the clearing as well, breaking out from both sides of the stream and rushing after her to the best of their abilities, the flame in her hand being one of the things that made her stand out in the darkness.

She didn't have a weapon. Her sword, a beautiful silver weapon crafted specifically for her, her Dark Repulser, was all the way back in the castle, stabbed through the heart of the man who'd fired the deathly arrow at her husband. All she had were the branches she might be able to pick off the ground and her control over the fire element, her last and final resort in this battle.

She was going to make it count.

When, by her best estimation, she crossed enough distance to allow Minetaka to retreat with Kazuto safely, she stopped running. Perhaps she could attempt to disarm one of the soldiers, gain herself a weapon before launching her attack. That would give her some sort of a feeble means of attack, in case she survived the power outlet. She honestly didn't think she would, but willpower could and had done wonders for her in the past. The last thing she wanted was to be taken alive.

So, when the first, the closest soldier got close to her, cautiously, because she was just standing there, unmoving, she waited.

His armor wasn't the one she recognized, the metal breastplate not wearing any markings and being the only piece of protective gear he had on. The tip of the sword he gripped with both hands was pointed her way, but the look on his young face was conflicted, his lips drawn in a thin line.

"Do you surrender, Lady Akemi?" he asked, voice filled with insecurity. He was hesitating, uncertain whether he should be happy that she'd stopped running or terrified by the fact that he'd been the first to catch up. "Do you surrender?"

Akemi resisted the urge to scoff. Naturally, they'd want to take her in alive. The treasuries, no doubt. Besides Daisuke and King Raiden of Algade, she was the only one who knew how to open the treasuries and, if what she'd heard was right, King Raiden had been assassinated as well. It was an information that she had not had any means of confirming, not when she'd first heard about it and certainly not now. After Daisuke had died trying to get her and Kazuto out safely, she had been left to her own devices, though she had little doubt that the information was true. That left her as the only person in possession of the knowledge they needed, otherwise they would lose the fortunes they had come to conquer.

"I repeat," the young soldier said, more cautiously this time. "Do you surrender?"

_It's time._

"What do you think?" she cried out, making him jump out of his skin. He was young, perhaps an academy graduate only. He was not prepared for battle, not with Lady Akemi, the Blazing Star of Algade. "You took my husband! You made me bury my son! Do you think that I am just going to surrender, bow down to your will?"

He flinched, the grief, the pain and the _hatred_ in her voice rendering him unable to act for an instant. That instant, however, was all the time she needed.

"Retreat!"

The warning from the fast approaching soldier came too late, Akemi's tiny fireball burning through the soldier's forearm and, when that didn't prove to be enough, she aimed another one at his wrist. The other soldiers by now were just dozens of meters away from her, but her target dropped their weapon, screaming from the from the fire that was still burning inside him.

Akemi left him, it wouldn't do if that one died without passing her words to somebody else. They needed to think Kazuto was dead. They couldn't, even for a moment, think that he could have possibly survived this night.

The weapon in her hand, she noted with dismay, was typical Grandum equipment. The hilt was rough at the edges, her hand finding it far more uncomfortable than any of the Algadian swords had ever been. But it served a purpose. If nothing else, the weapon made it clear who her enemy was. The City of Grandum was the only one daring enough to stage a sneaky assault on the castle itself. Compared to her Dark Repulser, the weapon was of poor quality, something she could have sliced through with a single swing, but it would have to do.

A savage cry tore from her throat as she swung her sword at the next closest enemy, making a deep dent in his chest armor. He fell back, gasping for air as she took off running again, only barely missing a sword coming from his ally. Sharp pain on her left upper arm told her that she had failed to evade it completely, but she bit back a cry and ran faster, creating the distance she needed to stage the big attack she'd had in plan all along. The more soldiers following her, the better.

The stream, unfortunately, was not going to be of much help on this occasion. If they had anyone daring enough to jump into it in the dead of winter, albeit rather warm weather for the time of the year, she'd be vulnerable to a melee attack, perhaps even of their affinity, if it was of any use in battle. Unfortunately, most of them were.

Nobody wanted to risk using fire against her, mainly because fire was one element, one of the few affinities that, once they started, did not stop or weaken regardless of their initial caster's condition. It also meant that if any one of them tried to hit her and missed, hitting something flammable instead, Akemi could very much gain control of it and use it against them. Whether they could do the same depended on their level of development, but she didn't think there were many people capable of pulling it off, a fact she was happy to abuse.

Finally, the first affinity attack came at her in form of a rock hurled at her head. It was moving at higher speed than it had any right to, meaning that it was under direct control of either somebody with earth affinity or a Telekinetic. It was not something she was fast enough to evade.

It left a deep gash on her right cheek, bringing tears to her eyes. She whipped out the sword for protection against the next one coming, then cast it aside as the rock had been strong enough to dent the blade. It had to be a Telekinetic, then, somebody who could make objects faster than they have any right to be, somebody capable of moving objects merely with a thought. It was a dangerous opponent.

But Akemi was done running.

She stopped and so did the soldiers, making a hesitant circle around her. Those at the front were swordsmen, mostly, although she did spot an occasional lance or a spear pointed her way. The horsemen were right behind them, several of them holding out their hands as if ready to use their affinities against her while their full knight armor gleamed in the moonlight. There had to be at least two dozens that she could see, possibly more.

There was no way for her to run anywhere was what the soldier at the front had to be saying, though Akemi could not make out the words.

Why would she run, when she had them exactly where she'd wanted them?

It started as a thin ring of fire floating in mid-air, about two meters in diameter. Akemi's long hair, dark as the darkest night itself, whipped everywhere from the compressed power surrounding her within the circle. Her eyes, normally grayish blue, were now dancing in oranges and reds, the same shade of the flames hovering around her. The sleeves of her already weakened shirt were torn off, revealing the tattoo of the Royal Family insignia over her right shoulder, two crossed swords over a cone shaped shield and two chains cutting at each other while two proud dragons faced off, wings spread and tails intertwined. Getting it had hurt immensely, but as its black surface now glowed with the light of her flames, giving her the strength and power she needed, she felt grateful to have it.

The force of her ring stopped any affinity attack they attempted to throw long before it reached her. The heat and the power she'd been gathering were finally beginning to get to her, a sign that she'd overstepped her bounds, crossing into the territory which should never be crossed. Tiny fragments of stones, branches and grass were now beginning to lift in the air as well, hurled towards the soldiers who were beginning to retreat.

Slow. Much too slow.

Severely affected by the heat and her nose bleeding, she knew she had succeeded in her first goal. The pressure released, the ring of fire blew outwards thinly, going through anything and everything in its path as Akemi collapsed down on her knees.

In the two meter circle around her where there used to be grass, now was only ash. The trees were beginning to collapse around her, but the ring was still spreading, she didn't know how far. She could barely sense it through the blinding pain.

She was reaching the limit of what she could take, a certain sign that the final stage of her attack should begin. If anyone had survived the initial burst, then this would be the one that ended their existence permanently.

_Daisuke, Kazuto, I love you. I only wish we could have stayed together a bit longer._

_I'm sorry._

Everything inside the ring exploded.


	2. Chapter 1: A Mother's Goodbye

**Author's Note: **Well, here's chapter one. Will probably go through some edits in the future. In the meantime, there you go.

30-06-2014: Edited version out.

* * *

The village of Taft was a peaceful place for life. It was the southernmost settlement in the entire Northern Limits region, only several miles away from the Marisol Bay and the ocean. Unlike most other towns and cities near a shore, it was not a port of any kind, rather a simple merchant location with nearly ten thousand residents, surrounded by the hills on the east and north sides. It was the place where temperatures tended to rise well beyond average for the rest of region during all the seasons.

This was one of those summer seasons when 'very hot' was slowly giving way to 'frying pan hot'.

Kazuto, Kirigaya Kazuto, just another thirteen-year-old local school graduate, strolled down the busy street, keeping to the shaded sides rather than the middle to avoid the blinding sun. Unlike most people, he lacked a cap or any other kind of improvised means to keep the sun from his eyes. Even worse, his t-shirt was made of rough material that only made the heat worse.

The main street was busy as usual, what with the street vendors offering their merchandise that ranged from food ingredients to bladed weapons, what with the people inclined to look over and buy them. More than once he had been forced to go around the vendors and in the sun. Whose idea had it been to announce the results at noon, anyway?

Thankfully, he had only a short distance to cross. First Taft local school was situated just off the main street, a three storey building towering over him. The iron gates gave way to stone path leading past grassy surface and several tall trees.

First Taft local school, otherwise also known as Taftor Rudenbourgh Basic Educational Institution, was the oldest and the biggest of the three basic educational institutions in Taft, though most tended to call it just First school or Central school. It was, at least according to the local newspaper, one of the higher quality institutions in the region, though only slightly more than half the children in the village could attend due to a limited number of students the school could take.

Most of its pupils came from financially stable homes, capable of paying for full education, but there were students like Kazuto who remained on the scholarship list due to their high marks. It was a status he would have undoubtedly lost if he had another year to go, if his bad feeling about the results was anything to go by.

There were few other graduates already present at the yard, sitting on the staircase in shade or waiting for their friends under the shade of the tree, telling jokes. Due to there being nearly hundred graduates, Kazuto didn't know many of them outside his own class. In fact, he recognized none of the students present, except for the blonde boy sitting at the bottom of the stairs, playing with his fingers.

He noticed Kazuto raised one hand in greeting then leaned his elbows on his knees.

"Have they been posted yet?" Kazuto asked.

Eugeo, Nakano Eugeo, his long time classmate and the closest friend he'd had for the past few months, gave him an uncertain smile.

"Yes. I didn't dare go look."

"What? Why?" Kazuto asked with genuine interest.

Eugeo shrugged. "Just didn't."

Kazuto watched him for a long moment; he could understand the nervousness. End year exams had always been regarded as special kind of results and the fact that these were the results of end year exams of their final year in local school made them all the more important.

He remembered hours he'd spent trying to memorize the dates of the most important historical events and the advanced sentence structure, some of the things that had simply refused to settle in his mind, unlike subjects such as mathematics and physics. Eugeo, on the other hand, had been a complete opposite, draining in everything that had to do with historical wars and figures, but struggling to understand simple polynomials and equations. What they did share was a mutual hatred for biology, one of the five subjects making out the end year exam.

He tapped Eugeo on the shoulder, urging him to get up.

"Come on. The longer we wait the worse it gets."

"That you're right about," Eugeo agreed and straightened, standing about five centimeters taller than Kazuto. "My hands are shaking. What are we going to do if it wasn't good enough?"

"You studied more than I did, what do you have to worry about?" Kazuto asked as they walked past the large stone entryway and the pleasantly cool air inside reached them. "Mmm, did they finally install the fans?"

"No. I heard that one of the director's secretaries has wind affinity so she cooled down the hall when she came to put the results on the news board."

Kazuto let out a low whistle. "Good thinking."

"Seconded."

The news board, positioned right across the hall from the entrance, was clearly visible, but the list of handwritten names on it was still too small to make out. Most of it was obstructed from their view anyway, due to the two girls standing in front of it, talking in hushed whispers as they pointed at random names. Kazuto recognized one of them, the redhead in a lavender colored sundress, Rikujou Hana from their class. The shorter girl, the one with shoulder-length black hair and a fancy skirt, reminded him of a girl he was pretty sure was in Suguha's year and not theirs.

Hana turned then, an ear to ear smile spreading over her face.

"I ranked third!" she squealed and spread her arms.

Kazuto had the presence of mind to move away at the last second, leaving Eugeo to take the hug that the girl was so considerate to give. It was her usual treatment of people whenever she heard something that made her happy, an experience that maybe only two or three pupils from their class had missed out on and many more wished they could have avoided, if only because she had a tendency to choke them. Kazuto was proud of the fact that he was the only one he'd only gotten to go through it once.

Eugeo was less than appreciative of the sentiment. Kazuto politely looked away when he sent him a look that seemed to be beginning for help, preferring to amuse himself with looking over at the final results.

"I ranked third, I can't believe it!" Hana squealed. "I'm third!"

"Congratulations," Eugeo said with patience, almost struggling for breath. "Can you please let me go now?"

"Oh, fine, if I have to. I have to go spread the news anyway." She sighed in resignation. "So am I going to see you guys on the gathering next week or are you really leaving?"

Kazuto found that Eugeo was looking his way and, reluctantly, he answered, "We'll try to be here for the gathering next year."

Hana opened her mouth to say something, no doubt a complaint, but the words died on her lips when the meaning of his words became clear. Instead, she nodded.

"Good luck, you two. I really hope you'll make it. You've prepared yourselves the best you could, right?"

The boys exchanged another look.

"It doesn't feel nearly enough. Just knowing that those city kids have such a big advantage over us makes me even more nervous," Eugeo admitted.

Hana smiled at him. "It's okay. If Schuberg could do it—" her nose wrinkled at the mention of the name, "—then so can you. So don't fret, okay?" She then turned to Kazuto. "And do step by to my dad's store when you come to buy the supplies. I'll convince him to give you a discount. As a thanks for all those cherries Sugu brought us."

Kazuto laughed. "I'll have to take you up on that offer."

Hana grinned and waved at them. "See you!" She grabbed the other girl's hand, skipping out of the building while engaging in a cheerful monologue about her 'best result ever'.

Eugeo looked to Kazuto, making a nervous gesture with his hand. "So, results?"

"You can relax, you did fine," Kazuto replied with an impish smile "Here, why don't you take a look?"

"It's eleventh, isn't it?" Eugeo asked even as he did move in closer to look.

Kazuto worried for a moment, when he saw his shoulders relax significantly, that maybe he'd actually faint. It didn't happen, granted, but Eugeo looked like heavy burden had finally been taken off his back.

"I can't believe it. Fifth… I can't…" he shook his head.

Kazuto sighed. "Just don't start acting like Hana, okay? I'll make it through the day without a hug."

Eugeo chuckled faintly. "You don't have to worry about that. It's just, I never thought I'd make it. I mean, I got seventy five out of hundred on math. My best result so far had been sixty four and rank seventeenth and…" He shook his head and looked back to the list, squinting. "How did you do?"

Kazuto gave him a smug smile, pushing back the feeling of weak disappointment. "Ninth. Just within the limits. It's not my best result, but it's fine. It should be more than enough."

Eugeo nodded. "That leaves the entrance exams as the only thing to worry about. And since this is Aincrad, it's going to be really difficult, isn't it?"

Kazuto thought back to all the legends about the Aincrad Academy, the floating castle in the sky, the only one of its kind. Place so amazing that no other could compare, a key point in so many legends and stories, the home of heroes, the place where they were born. Everyone had, at some point, wanted to look at it once, to see the giant masterpiece in all its grandness as it defied all the laws of physics. Thousands of graduates signed up every year, hoping they would be the ones to make it into the famed Academy.

"Yeah," Kazuto agreed solemnly. "It's going to be really, really difficult."

* * *

Kirigaya Midori heaved a sigh as she pulled the last of the papers and put them on a pile, then moved the entire pile for the courier to take care of. She brushed her dark hair from her eyes, using the handkerchief to wipe away the sweat from her face.

"What time is it?" she asked before taking a long gulp of water as if her life was depending on it. Her nose wrinkled in distaste. Not for the first time, she wondered if somebody was going to get them a water cooler any time soon. It had been one of the things designated to reach the office this year, but it was now a month since the heats had started and there was still no date specified.

"Five minutes till the end of your shift," her colleague, Ayano Sora, replied. "You can go pack if you want, I don't mind."

"My replacement isn't here yet," Midori pointed out with dismay, glancing around the sun-filled room. The heat had been enough to send one of their more sensitive coworkers home, leaving Midori and Sora the only ones in the office for the rest of their shift, with double the work. It would have been fine, if this hadn't been the fifth time in three weeks.

"Don't worry about it. She'll probably be late again, but if nothing else, at least the boss will be here this time around," Sora said with a tired sigh.

"Here's to hoping you're right," Midori agreed, lifting her bottle of water as a salute. "That reminds me, is Ryoutarou-kun back yet? I heard from Akihisa that he's gone to Friben, but I'm not sure if he's returned."

"Yesterday, just before she left with her husband," Sora replied, giving up on the two papers she'd been trying to read at the same time and retying her long caramel hair back in a high bun. "You need him to fetch something?"

Midori snorted as she stood up and took her purse, checking through to see if everything was there. "Nothing that simple, unfortunately. But he's back, that's good news. I'll see you tomorrow. Say hi to Keiko-chan for me."

Sora hummed in response as Midori left the office, walking over to the guard to sign the paper that she'd left her workplace in designated time.

Working as one of the secretaries in the city hall was one of the more tedious jobs, especially for a woman who, like Midori, had been prepared for much more demanding professions. The work was boring and repetitive, not allowing for much development in any fields other than ridiculously fast reading, but the pay was acceptable. It brought food to mouth and it offered stability, a necessity if she wanted for both her children to receive proper education and have a quality roof over their head they could always come back to.

"Okay, that's one more stop, then I have to go get something I'll prepare for lunch," she listed off as she walked down the street hurriedly. The streets were busy as usual in the midday, from the street vendors to all those other people like her going back from work, women busily searching for food ingredients while men either accompanied them or were looking for tools of some sort. Midori had a habit of buying from the street vendors as well, it saved a lot of time from visiting an actual shop that was a bit further away from her home, but as this time she was heading in that direction anyway, she decided she could make an exception this one time.

The house she was heading to was one of the bigger homes in the village, a house that belonged to Tsuboi Akihisa, one of Midori's former superiors. The elder lady, now retired, had always been a pleasant company and now especially she was proving to be of warm heart and kind nature. Midori had been very happy when she'd heard that her husband had finally taken her to visit Salemburg, a coast city of Central region, one of the most beautiful cities in existence.

It also meant that the only person now living at her house should be her son, Tsuboi Ryoutarou, a young man who had made it a habit to travel whenever he could and just the person Midori was looking for. And he was right outside the house, working on Akihisa's small front garden, looking very much like he was in need of a good shower, his plain white shirt drained from sweat.

"Good afternoon, Ryoutarou-kun," Midori said flippantly as she unlocked the fence, a trick known to few only.

"Ah, Kirigaya—uh, sorry, Midori-san. If you're looking for mother, she's—"

"Gone to Salemburg, I heard," Midori grinned, something that seemed to, against her intentions, put him on the edge. "Actually, it's you who I was looking for. I've heard about your regular trips to Algade. Is there any chance you'll be heading there in time for Aincrad's entrance exams?"

Ryoutarou stroked his unshaven face, a look of concern on his face. "Well, yeah, I suppose, but—"

"Great! Can I trust you to let Kazuto come along with you? He's decided to go and nothing I say is going to stop him."

"Umm… I'm not sure… I mean, it's not the usual work, we're not just going to sell things as usual. It's really not a very good idea," he admitted nervously, something Midori ignored.

"Come on, Ryoutarou-kun. Remember your Aincrad days. The children still consider you a hero in this neighborhood. And you know how Kazuto is. He and his friend have every intention of going there all the way on foot if they have to. You of all people should know how dangerous that is."

Ryoutarou paled. "A friend, too?" At Midori's insistent look, he fumbled over the words, "I know… I mean, I do… but I really don't think this—"

"Do I really need to call in that favor you owe me?" Midori asked, putting her hands to her hips. If anything, it seemed to make him even more nervous.

"Couldn't you just ask old man Masaru? He even owns a truck, we only borrow it from time to time. And this time we're riding the horses and…"

He trailed off, scratching the back of his head and looking anywhere but at Midori.

"No?" Midori asked, hands on her hips and a frown on her face.

"Uh, I'll see… I'll see with the others and let you know. Just, tell them to prepare sleeping bags of some kind."

Battle won, Midori chuckled. "Oh, they've already prepared it. All they really need is to know whether they should head out tomorrow on their own or wait until you head there. Oh, and that reminds me, when are you planning to go?"

"Friday…"

"Two days? Oh, okay. Feel free to stop by for dinner anytime."

Ryoutarou mumbled something, not audible to her, but Midori let it be. She had actually been expecting that she'd have to blackmail him more than this, not a pleasant idea in the least. However, this was the only thing she could still do to help her son, as small as it was. Once she let him go, she knew, all the control she had over him would be taken from her hands.

It was a terrifying knowledge to behold, in more than one way. She wasn't ready for it. She wasn't sure she'd ever be ready for it. But it was something that she had sworn she would do when the time came. If he decided to go, she would not stop him. She did not have the right to. She could, however, help him, and Midori had long since resolved to do everything in her power to do so.

_You'd be proud of him, Minetaka._

A fond smile sprang up on her face as she waved at young Ryoutarou and turned to go.

_You'd be so proud of him._

* * *

"Get up!"

The shout was faint, as if coming from a distance. Eugeo turned.

White vastness surrounded him, a valley covered in ice and snow. The surface of the lake in front of him was straight and placid. Frozen. There was nothing in his immediate surroundings, nobody who could have called to him, nobody who would have tried.

What lay behind his back were ruins of a stone palace, or at least, he thought that was it. There was no sign to confirm the observation, no relic to show it and no person to ask about it.

The foundations were made of stone, that much he was sure of. The large broken pieces of stone surrounding them suggested ruins of some kind. And that was really everything he knew about the place.

Dark grey clouds were looming over him, unmoving, as if they were frozen as well. He could feel faint scent of roses in the air, but there was not a single rose to show for it. There was no wind. Other than him, there was no life, no trees, no grass, or, if there perhaps was grass, it was hidden deep under the snow.

He was alone in this place, always. But even more than that, he was cold, always cold. It was a feeling that shook him deep down to his core. In this world, he'd learned, the cold was the only thing he _could_ feel. The stones could never penetrate his skin, they left no marks even when he'd tried bashing his head against one. When he'd once, in a desperate attempt to find a way out, attempted to drown himself in the frozen lake, he'd learned that it was warm. To his touch, the ice barrier keeping his only way of escape unreachable had felt warm, heating his fingers like the rays of sunshine in the middle of the day.

It terrified him.

His physical strength had never been enough to break the frozen surface. He had never found a means of any kind to do it either and exploring his surroundings had amounted to finding that the vast valley surrounding him was never ending. No matter how far he walked, he could not seem to get away.

Logic implied that the lake had to be his way out. There was nothing else. The stones he had attempted to throw at it would always disappear and then he would find them back in the place where he'd taken them from. It was driving him insane.

Was it all a dream? A nightmare?

It certainly didn't feel that way. If anything, it felt more real every time he found himself in this place. It felt colder.

"Eugeo, get up!"

And just the way it had come, it was gone.

The lake, the ruins and the white vanished, replaced with bright sunny room and warmth that made him shiver. His eyes were wide open, hands clutching at his covers even as he felt the bead of sweat trail down his forehead and onto his pillow. His pillow. His _bed._

"Eugeo, I'm not going to repeat myself ten times, get up, or I will call your father!"

The door slammed.

If everything else hadn't been enough to convince him that he was back in his room, then the slam certainly would have.

Eugeo pushed himself up on his elbow, feeling stiff. The mattress and the pillow under him were wet and so were his pajamas. Touching his forehead with his fingers, he found that it was wet, too, locks of his hair plastered to it.

He got out of the bed shakily, drops of sweat going from his neck all the way down his spine. His hand reached out for the matches, but he stopped himself before he could actually take them. It was the end of the seventh month, the middle of summer. He'd be crazy trying to light a fire in a room bathing in sun, in this time of the year. Hadn't he been complaining about the heat just last night?

Still, the feeling of the cold wouldn't go away. It never did, not until hours after waking up.

Eugeo reached for the towel thrown over the chair and used it to wipe his face, a practice that felt dully familiar. It was a comforting sensation. He was dripping wet for reasons he couldn't explain, but the hellish nightmare was over. That put him at ease.

He changed into dry clothes immediately, leaving for the wet garments to dry in the sun as he moved to examine the covers. They were barely moist, not enough to draw anyone's attention. Not that he was particularly worried. He was leaving today. Even if somebody noticed, he wouldn't be there for anyone to ask about it.

He inspected his backpack quickly, to see if everything he needed was there, before throwing the covers over the mattress, hiding away the evidence. That nightmare wasn't something he wanted to be brought to light. Years ago, when it had first started, he'd tried, futilely, to bring it to attention of his adoptive parents or older siblings, but they had dismissed it as something that would pass.

"You had a bad dream, Eugeo. That's all there is to it. Don't worry about it."

He'd believed them, at first. But then it kept happening again and again. When he'd been younger, it had been as frequent as once or twice per month, but it had to have been well over four months now. However, when he'd been younger, he didn't remember waking up wet as if he'd just walked out of a shower. Perhaps he'd been a bit sweaty, but nothing like this.

There was no pattern he could follow. The nights when it happened were completely random, not gaining power from any powerful emotion or lack thereof. He'd feared that maybe it had been his affinity calling to him, but the one book he had on the subject made it painfully clear that affinities didn't manifest that way.

It didn't make any sense and he had no way of predicting it, no way of offering evidence, and no will to do it, either. Not anymore.

Eventually, he had learned to live with it. It left him cold and scared and weak, but it ended, it always did, so he continued to endure. He would, until one day, hopefully, it stopped happening entirely.

When he reached the dining room, he got a cross look from his mother, Nakano Mana, as she set an empty plate in front of him.

"Today you will go help your brother Arata with the mews, is that clear? After that, you can take Mimi to the neighbor's house to play."

Eugeo's hands curled into fists and he bit his lip. He was well aware of his delicate position in his adoptive family. Mana had spelled it out multiple times. Whenever father or brothers needed help of any kind he was to go, because he was the youngest. Well, his little sister, seven-year-old Mimi was the youngest, but she didn't count.

"Eugeo, were you listening?" his mother inquired, brushing the dark locks of her hair from her face.

Dark hair and brown eyes were characteristic for all the members of the Nakano family, with Eugeo as the only exception. It had in the past brought on multiple uncomfortable questions, either from other people or Eugeo himself.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Her eyes narrowed. Immediately, he bit his lip.

"I'm leaving today."

"Delay it."

Eugeo's head whipped up. "I can't do that! Tsuboi-san can't wait for me—"

"Family comes first, Eugeo. I made it clear when I agreed to your plea to head to Aincrad. Have you spared with Arata yet? Have you let him test you?"

"… No."

"Then how do you expect to succeed where he failed?"

Eugeo bit his lip. "I…"

His mother sighed, her voice taking a softer tone. "I understand that you wish to go. It is something everyone wants to see, a place that everyone wants to visit, but don't hold any illusions about it. It is a place where only the best remain."

"I… I know. Kazuto said—"

"Kazuto spent two months in a hospital at the start of this school year, if I remember correctly. What is he expecting to achieve? I'd say his odds are worse than anyone else's from this village."

"He's at least willing to try."

"And his foolish stubbornness has seemingly crossed onto you as well." His mother took a deep breath. "Look, Eugeo. If I want something, it is for you to have the best you can get. If you believe that you will find that in Aincrad, I sincerely wish for you to achieve it. But I don't want you to be my third child who has returned from that place in tears, future ruined."

As if the very same thoughts weren't torturing him as well. Eugeo knew his chances were far from good. He had first taken up a sword at the time he'd befriended Kazuto after years of simply knowing about him, about six months ago. It had, before then, been just an abstract concept. But he'd worked himself to the bone, doing his best to advance in the little time he had.

He refused to give up.

"I'll make it through," he said quietly. "I'll make it through, on scholarship, so that you don't have to pay it."

"Eugeo—"

"I'm going now. I already said my goodbyes to everyone last night."

"You didn't even have breakfast—"

"I'm going to be late. I can't do that. I'll eat along the way. Goodbye, mom. I'll send a letter when I get there."

He saw her closing her eyes even as he left the table, heading towards his room to get the supplies. He heard the silent voice before she turned back to kitchen.

"Goodbye. And good luck."

He didn't say anything, but inside, a little bit of warmth that had abandoned him during the night returned.

* * *

"Do you have everything ready?"

Kazuto gave one last glance to his backpack before giving a nod. He reached for his sword, drawing it from the sheath one last time to make sure he'd cleaned it well.

The Anneal Blade, primarily built for one handed use, used to be a standard weapon issued to the guards stationed everywhere in City of Algade. The particular weapon in his possession was old, rigged at the edges, but it was a solid weapon—it was the only one he had, the last thing he had left from his dad. He placed it over his back, the only way he could so that it wouldn't drag on the ground because of his inadequate height. Then he placed the overstuffed backpack over it.

"Ready," he said.

"I see," his mother said, then brushed his hair.

She might or might not have wanted to say more, but that was when a projectile crashed into him, nearly knocking him down as it wrapped its hands around his neck.

"I want to go, too! I want to go, too, I don't want to stay here. I'm going to miss you so much, Onii-chan!"

Kazuto put his hand to rest on his sister's head.

"It's okay, you'll come next year."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," their mother said firmly.

"But mom—"

"We've had this argument before, Suguha. I will not and cannot stop Kazuto from going if that is what he really wants, but you are another story. I have no intention of letting you go there. Now, please, go finish the homework you've been given."

"Okay," she agreed sullenly. "I'll miss you, Onii-chan. I'll miss you so much."

She sniffed into Kazuto's shirt, then turned and ran up the wooden stairs, making far more noise than necessary.

"Kazuto?"

He looked to his mom expectantly, but she too pulled him into a hug.

"Promise me you'll be careful," she said.

"I did that already."

"I know, but that's not what I'm talking about. I know you, Kazuto. And I can understand why you'd want to keep it silent, but you have to tell somebody. Whether it will be Ryoutarou-kun or Eugeo or somebody else entirely, I don't care. When it acts up again, and we both know it will, you need to have somebody watching your back. Promise me that much."

"But—"

"Don't give me that argument," she interrupted him. "You didn't spend two months in the hospital for nothing. You're not _fine_. Whatever it is that is affecting your hearing isn't going to just go away. So promise me you'll tell somebody, the sooner the better."

Kazuto's words caught in his throat. He felt the light itch on his forearm, the place where dozens of needless had been stabbed into his arm while the doctors had been performing their examinations. It had never hurt much, but it had been an uncomfortable feeling, even more so than the time when they'd gone about inspecting his right ear. That one had only itched.

After two months of constant examinations and no answers, no change in his so called 'condition', they'd let him go with an advice to report in the next time he started feeling dizzy. He never did. His mom had agreed with his assessment, that the doctors couldn't do anything. She had made him promise that he'd speak to a healer when he reached Algade. Healers, unlike doctors, had their affinities to help them make more precise diagnoses. She was certain they'd be able to help.

"Okay," he said, swallowing back his urge to protest. He couldn't deny her this, not when she was begging him. "I promise."

"What?"

"I promise that I'll tell… somebody. The first chance I get."

"And?"

He didn't answer. He didn't look at her. He couldn't lie. Not to her.

His mother sighed. "I'm not going to get more than that, am I?"

Kazuto gave her a tiny nod.

"I see."

Midori bent down, kissing his forehead.

"Do your best out there, okay? I have faith in you."

Kazuto's fists clenched and he found himself nodding in struggle to get the words out. "I will."

It sounded off, even to his own ears, but it was even worse when he saw tears in the corners of her eyes. It made him almost—_almost_—drop the backpack and stay. But he didn't. Instead, he turned, feeling a bit unsteady on his feet even as he made one step after another until he reached the door.

He wouldn't look back.

He didn't say goodbye. He didn't say anything, because nothing felt right. He was going to come back, eventually. Maybe for the summer vacation after the first year, maybe soon after he failed the examinations. He didn't know. But it was not a goodbye. It was just a 'see you later', though he didn't get out even that much.

By the time he reached the meeting place, the tiny park right outside the bounds of the village, the sun was higher in the sky. Tsuboi Ryoutarou, a hero to just about everyone in Taft, was the only one there, in the company of two horses. Dressed in a grey t-shirt made out of rough materials like Kazuto's and comfortable trousers, he wiped away the sweat from his forehead while giving the horses water to drink.

Spotting Kazuto, he grinned.

"Morning there, kid. You ready?" he asked, voice upbeat, cheerful.

"As ready as I can be," Kazuto replied honestly. He noted the weapon attached to his hip, its blade curved. It puzzled him, but he didn't ask. A good thing, too, because the twenty-two-year old merchant started talking again.

"It's not as scary as most people make it out to be," Ryoutarou explained. "I mean, there's always a lot of people you have to compete against and many of them will have skills you've never seen before, but don't let it freak you out. Skill is not the only factor."

"You'll have to tell Eugeo that when he gets here, too."

"Oh, I will. I'll give you some tips along the way, too. Maybe spar with you a bit, if we don't get too exhausted on the way. Wouldn't do for you to reach Aincrad only to pass out in the middle of a test."

"Thank you, Ryoutarou-san."

"Meh, we're going to be travelling buds. The least you can do is call me like the rest of the group does."

"Oh?"

"Klein," he clarified. "Call me Klein."

Kazuto nodded. After a moment of thought, he held out his hand. Klein raised an eyebrow even as he took it in a firm handshake.

"It's nice to meet you, Klein."

"Nice to meet you too, Kirigaya. Or should that be Kazuto?"

"It's fine either way," the younger boy said.

Klein grinned. "Okay, well, I'm settling on Kazuto then. From this point on, consider yourself an honorary Fuurinkazan member."

Kazuto smiled as he pulled his hand back.

"Say, you don't happen to have anything we can use to have fun while we wait? I don't know about that friend of yours, but my friends are definitely gonna be late."

"Sorry. I think Eugeo is going to bring a deck of cards. Maybe."

Klein sighed. "Well, better than nothing."

He then glanced towards the village, the only direction they could come from. There were only two older ladies there, walking around the outer walls of the village.

The walls weren't meant to be a defensive feature, although they had served that way a couple of times in the past. More often than not, they had been more of a hassle than an aid, forcing the villagers to collapse them several times in history so that the village could grow in size. The gate, however, the very gate in front of them had been proclaimed sacred and thus not allowed to be damaged. Having started out as a village with less than five hundred residents, the outer walls, when observing from air, were in a distinct shape of two circles brought together, one nearly ten times smaller than the other.

Or at least, that was what the teachers had taught them in history class. He didn't think there was a way for them to have seen it personally.

"Hmm, is that your friend over there?"

Kazuto nodded, that head of blond hair being something he'd recognize anywhere. Eugeo was walking towards them, his backpack easily the size of Kazuto's own, a practice sword attached to his hip.

"Well, hopefully we won't wait for the rest of them too long," Klein said. "We have a long way to go."

Feeling of excitement bubbled up inside the boy. They had a long way to go, indeed.


	3. Chapter 2: Lights of Urbus

**Author's Note: **Sorry for a bit slower update. Had a bit more to study than I expected and when I was done, I basically marathoned through Accel World anime. Next chapter shouldn't take this long. Probably.

* * *

"And that is how you put on a saddle. Wanna give it a try?"

"Un."

Kazuto glanced up from where he was sitting on the grass, just in time to see the self appointed sub-leader of Fuurinkazan, man going by the name Kunimittz, undo the straps of the saddle on his horse and hand it over to Eugeo. The younger boy struggled to get a good grip on it for a moment.

"It's a lot heavier than I expected," he admitted, then carefully placed it on the back of the dark brown mount.

Kazuto turned back to where Klein and another member of the Fuurinkazan, nicknamed Harry One, though most just called him Harry, were sitting. Both were leaned against the trunk of a thick tree, intermittently drinking from a water bottle.

Out of all the members of the Fuurinkazan Merchant Guild, Harry was the youngest fulltime member, having turned seventeen at the very start of the seventh month. It went to show in the way the others treated him, like the child in the group, someone to watch out for, someone to tease and someone not meant to take any responsibility—the same way they were now treating Eugeo and Kazuto.

It would have bothered Kazuto, if not for the fact that he and Eugeo had disrupted their usual business.

They never came out and outright said it, though it showed in small things, such as offhand comments or jokes that were half true and half old stories from past travels. Kazuto had tried to point out that they needn't go slower just because he and Eugeo weren't used to riding, they'd get used to it with time, but nobody had listened. Klein insisted on making a break every hour of so for the past twelve hours, which had brought on jokes how they'd never been slower before. They had all seemed to be taking it in good humor, too, which was one of the things that bothered Kazuto the most. It had come as no surprise to him when the other three members of the guild had decided to keep going and meet with the rest of them at their next stopping place.

The small fire burning in front of Kazuto was the only source of light other than the stars in the moonless sky. They had chosen to rest at the edge of a small forest at the top of a hill while the road ahead of them continued down in the valley. The only watch they had belonged to Kunimittz and the last time they had checked the time it had well past ten. At this hour, he would normally already be preparing for bed.

He didn't think he was going to get the chance anytime soon, even if he did feel like laying down and closing his eyes.

"So…" Kazuto started, breaking the silence in their little circle as the only way to keep himself from dozing off. "Why Urbus?"

Urbus was a town north of Taft, about five times its size. It wasn't as close as some of the smaller villages and, after consulting the map, Kazuto had learned for a fact that going through Urbus was not the quickest way to reach Algade. It might have been insolent to ask that, but the actions made little sense in Kazuto's mind.

"Business," Klein replied, looking towards the lights far in the distance, lights of a town populated with over fifty thousand people.

Kazuto still had issues wrapping his mind about the idea that electrical lighting had been installed in the entire town. Didn't something like that demand hundreds of those electricity generator things? He'd gotten to see one in his life, the one powering the main street and City Hall in Taft. Could it be possible that Urbus had hundreds of those things?

But his mind was getting off track and Klein didn't really answer his question. Now that he thought of it, Klein had never responded with a single word only.

"What business?" he asked.

Maybe, at some other time, he would have thought more about it and would have been a bit less curious, but now he wanted to know. Fuurinkazan was a merchant guild, so what were they selling? There was the one horse with an improvised coach which they used to transport the luggage, now stationed a bit further away, but when he'd left his own backpack inside, Kazuto hadn't seen anything that could be sold.

"Not much," Klein replied, shaking him from his thoughts. "Just going to make a deal, I suppose, see about advancing the business."

Kazuto didn't miss the way he couldn't seem to look at him.

"Nothing of importance, really."

The boy was about ready to give an acknowledgement of some kind when Klein jumped to his feet, thoroughly surprising both the other boys.

"All right, break is over. Kunimittz, are we ready to go?"

"All set!"

"Good. Kunimittz, like the last time, you're with Eugeo. Kazuto, you'll stick with Harry this time and I'll go with the luggage."

"Finally!" Harry exclaimed. "Man, I was getting tired of that."

The affair of getting ready to move lasted for the time it took them to stand up, light out the fire and mount the horses. Seeing as there had not been enough horses for them all, Kazuto and Eugeo had been riding with somebody else from the very start—and it didn't count as a comfortable journey, either.

Kazuto glanced towards their destination, clearly visible from the clearing they were on. The only light in the darkness was now coming from the stars in the sky and the town down in the valley in the distance. Having paused on a moderately high hill, they could see the how far the town in the valley stretched, its grandiose size and exactly how far away it was. It was amazing.

They crossed over half the distance in little less than an hour and, the closer they got, the bigger the city seemed to become. Several lit towers were standing out in the distance and the size seemed to increase with every meter they crossed.

"Wow," Eugeo said, and Kazuto found himself nodding in agreement. He had never seen a place that big before. Other than Raisel, a village much further north where his family used to live, a place he didn't remember all that well, he hadn't seen any town this size and, according to their history teacher, Urbus was a _small _town.

It took them roughly two hours to reach the Town gates from their rest point, a satisfying amount of time, according to Klein. Kazuto had to admit that at that point, he didn't really care. He was too busy looking up at the gates, the sheer size of them, any longing for rest and a comfortable bed momentarily pushed out of his mind.

The town gates had to be at least as twice as high as Taft's main gate, well over ten meters in height, decorated with various shapes Kazuto couldn't quite place and Urbus' coat of arms on both its sides, two hammers crossed over a single triangular shield, the name of the town written in a metal plate between the hammer edges. The walls around the city, however, pretty much didn't even exist. They spread three meters on both sides of the gate, only to come to a stop without any explanations.

"Isn't this wrong?" Kazuto asked with a frown.

"What?" Klein asked. He noticed what Kazuto was looking at. "Eh? The walls? Don't sweat it."

"Kazuto's right, though. Aren't they meant to be a defensive feature?" Eugeo said.

"They used to be," Klein agreed. "Well, places like Algade and Lindas never had walls to begin with, it's only the smaller places that did, as a way to ward off from the invading armies and wild beasts. Fortunately, they no longer live around here."

Kazuto sighed. Comparing Urbus to places like Algade, the Capital, and Lindas, the second largest city in the region, felt like unjust comparison. Algade didn't need any kind of wards. The south part of it rested on the lake three or four times the size of the city and the north part was limited by the Forest one did not want to go into unless they had a death wish. The remaining two sides were guarded by some of the Aincrad Academy graduates—the best of the best. No force could possibility penetrate that kind of defense. Not that Algade had anything to fear at present.

On the other hand, Lindas was a city far off on the north coast, basically a city made of ice. They didn't have to worry about attacks. The enemy forces would probably freeze to death before ever reaching that far.

"Anyway, orders have been given for all the walls to be knocked down," Klein continued as they neared the two armored guards with Urbus coat of arms on their chest. Their guarding seemed to be a pointless task when there were no walls to prevent people from walking in.

"Eh? They have?" Eugeo asked in surprise.

"Well, ever since the new regime kicked in nine years ago, they've been insisting that Northern Limits have nothing to fear from Central. Stupid, really, but I'll spare you the history lesson. Basically, all towns and cities with walls have been ordered to take them down."

"But Taft—"

"They didn't specify the villages," Kunimittz said with a smirk that looked eerie in the orange light of the streetlamps. "Lord Heike, the former Lord Heike, mind you, was very quick to point that out."

"Aren't we supposed to at least say something to them?" Eugeo asked uncertainly as they simply rode past the guards without looking at them twice.

"Meh, they're just there for show. The sooner we get out of their sight, the sooner they get to play poker again."

Now that they were inside the town proper, their pace slowed down to the point where Kazuto was certain they'd be faster just walking on foot. The houses around them were of similar build like those in Taft, perhaps a little bit smaller, but the stone walls and the wooden frames seemed to be of significantly higher quality. It was no surprise, really, when Urbus was one of the few places where some rare crystals could be found and thus one of the generally more prosperous towns in the area. Even seeing occasional vehicles parked in front of some of the bigger houses wasn't that strange.

"So, are we going to the same inn like the last time or are we crashing somewhere else for tonight?" Kunimittz asked.

"Well, we're meeting with the others at the plaza, first." Klein sighed. "I told them to look for either a hotel or an inn, so long as it has enough space for eight of us."

Eugeo was quick to object. "But we—"

"I was pretty sure we settled the money question by now," Kunimittz interrupted him.

Neither of the boys said anything, but they shared a look that said more than any words could. Klein had been persistent when the subject first came up, constantly mentioning how they were now honorary members of Fuurinkazan and so any kind of payment on their part was unnecessary, but neither Eugeo nor Kazuto found that solution to be fair. If they weren't allowed to pay their expenses now, they were certainly going to find a way to make up for it later.

It took them another twenty minutes before they reached the town plaza, a round, paved area in front of a massive building that had to be either the City Hall or another official building, perhaps some strangely developed financial institution, if judging by the regal facades and wall sculptures. The streetlights were all set in a circle around the plaza and underneath one of the streetlamps, on a bench on the opposite side, there was a group of people.

Klein dismounted his dark brown horse and the rest of them followed suit. Kazuto only caught a glimpse of the look on Klein's face before he began leading them towards the other side, but he didn't miss the slightly displeased expression on his face as they neared the group of people.

He realized what was bothering him a moment later, when he looked to the group itself. Namely, instead of only three familiar faces of Dale, Issin and Dynamm, they were greeted by three extra faces, two guys and a girl, all with weapons sheathed at their waists.

The guys seemed to be engaged in a talk with the remaining Fuurinkazan members, while the girl leaned against the streetlamp, arms crossed, observing the new arrivals with cold professionalism.

What made her stand out was the odd hilt of her sword, a shape that seemed to extend on one side only, while both others had merely generic hilts that Kazuto had noticed the guards had worn. Another point that singled her out was the fact that out of everyone present, she was the only one with a breast plate or any sort of armor at all, making him wonder if she was perhaps a soldier of some kind, or a guard. Shoulder length dark hair nearly covered the eyes that seemed to glow in the light as they assessed each one of them separately. Kazuto couldn't wash away the feeling of cold how seemed to scan him, before moving on to somebody else.

"Eh, hi, Asahina," Klein said with a little cheerfulness to his voice that Kazuto had come to associate with his normal way of talking, if a bit distracted this time. There was a grin on his face, somewhat awkward, as he nodded at the girl. Without any excessive motion, the girl nodded back.

The grin was gone a moment later, when one of the arrivals, a young man barely taller than Klein, but with shoulders that were twice as wide, moved towards them, coming to stop right in front of him. Everything about him seemed to scream 'I'm better than you', from the quality dark shirt to the shoes that were basically sparkling in orange light and the way his hand moved seemed to deliberately indicate that his sword was very much within his reach.

He smirked, grey eyes seemingly gleaming with mischief.

"Not going to say hi to me, eh, buddy?" he asked.

"Maybe some other time, say, next time you actually show up when you're supposed to," Klein replied calmly.

The stranger rolled his eyes. "I was busy."

"So was I and it didn't stop me from sending somebody ahead to meet up with you," Klein replied impatiently.

Another thing Kazuto noticed was that this stranger seemed far too relaxed to be any kind of a soldier or even a rebel, how the younger boy first had pegged him as. With sharp and arrogant features, he fit every image of a rebel Kazuto could have ever thought of, which was exactly why he felt so relieved when he clapped Klein on the shoulder in a friendly gesture.

"Yeah, I see you've got your hands full. Say, I didn't think I'd ever see you playing a babysitter. What brought that on?"

Klein calmly batted away the hand. "I'm not playing a babysitter, for one."

"Oh, I see. I knew I heard one of your guys mention Aincrad. So that's what you're doing, escorting the brats to Aincrad?"

Every sign of friendliness that there had been present on the stranger's face was now gone as he observed the two boys with narrowed eyes. The sharp voice warranted for Harry, who was almost a head shorter and just as fragile looking as Eugeo and Kazuto were compared to the Kaizer, to step up abruptly. Issin was also quick to stand on his feet, as if expecting for a fight to break out every second.

Kazuto realized that he may have been a tad too soon to think of this man as a friend.

"Akira, shut up."

The stranger, Akira, Issin and even Klein froze in place and Kazuto wasn't the only one who found it strange that the girl had silenced him with merely three quiet words.

"Hey, Eris…" he started hesitantly when she pushed herself away from the lamppost and walked over to where they were standing. She handed a white envelope to Klein and most Kazuto got to make out on it was the image of two dragons, before Klein pushed it in his back pocket in a rush.

"Those are your instructions," she said. Kazuto had to wonder how she could stand the summer heat with that long coat on, even more so when he noticed the fingerless gloves on her hands.

Klein nodded.

"Everything you need to know is specified there," she continued. "Daimon—" she nodded in the direction of their third companion, the guy who looked several years older than her and had a longer haircut, not nearly as neat, but at least dressed for the weather "—is going to be of assistance if necessary. He's heading to Friben, but he should reach Algade before you. Akira and—"

"Can't you just do me a favor and call me like everybody else?" Akira protested.

"Akira and I have business in Salemburg for the time being," the girl whose name was Asahina Eris, if Kazuto got it right, didn't seem to register her companion at all, eyes dangerously boring into Klein.

The merchant nodded. "I see. So you're crossing the border to Central anyway?"

"Sailing over it, more like," Akira grumbled. "We're scheduled to depart from Cel tomorrow night."

Kazuto tried to recall where Cel, the port town, was located compared to Urbus, but gave up for the moment, deciding to focus on the ongoing conversation.

"You're expected to show up at Algade in seven days the latest and you have already been notified about the exact time and place," the girl continued without any regard to her companion or anybody else. "Tardiness will not be tolerated. And we'd sincerely prefer it if you stuck to the number of people you've reported beforehand."

To her credit, she did not look at either Kazuto or Eugeo when she said it.

Klein tilted his head, shoulders seemingly relaxing. "You have nothing to worry about, Asahina. We're just heading in the same direction. It'd be pointless to travel apart."

"Then we're done here. Akira, Daimon."

"We'll be seeing around, Klein. You better not let us catch you with Aincrad brats again," Akira said with a nod before rushing to catch up with Asahina's quick steps. The third man merely gave a polite nod to Klein—something Klein returned—as he walked past him to catch up with his companions.

For several seconds everything was silent.

"Wheew!" Issin sighed, nearly collapsing back onto the bench. "Sorry about that, boss. We tried to tell them we'd get the letter to you, but Asahina wouldn't have any of it. Scary, that one."

Klein seemed to sigh in resignation. "Ah well, it was too much to hope she'd agree anyway. And boy, was she pissed with me. I don't think she ever gave me that kind of a stink eye before. But never mind. Have you found us a place to sleep for tonight?"

"Yeah, an inn two blocks down from here," Dale replied. "I think you remember it, we stayed there when we went to Friben last year."

"Ah, that's a good choice. Come on, let's go. I'm so hungry I could eat a bear."

That seemed to put the rest of the group at ease and they engaged in a simple, relaxed chat, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. Kazuto stood in silence, watching them as they helped each other up and only following them when they headed towards the narrow street filled with two and three storey buildings. Eugeo walked beside him, Issin and Dale being the only ones to go behind them and lead the horses.

"So… what just happened?" Eugeo asked in a whisper.

Kazuto didn't think Eugeo wanted him to simply point out the fact that those three didn't appear to like them. He shook his head while his thoughts wandered in search for an answer.

"I don't know," was the only one he could come up with.

* * *

Eugeo wiped the sweat off his forehead as he folded his improvised pajamas—a worn out white t-shirt and an old, gray shorts—and placed them into his backpack.

His whole body felt stiff after all the time they'd spent riding, something that had eluded him until he actually had a chance to lay down and rest for a moment. He had really only had a minute or so come to a conclusion that he was tired, that it had been a tough day and that there was another one that was going to be even more exhausting waiting for them, before he'd been out cold. And now, here he was, in the early morning in a situation completely opposite of the one he'd been in the previous morning.

He was feeling like he was going to die from the heat.

The reason for that had, unfortunately, been the rain that had started falling sometime during the night, freely entering through the wide open window of the room he shared with Kazuto, position right between two old beds, and falling on their faces. Kazuto hadn't seemed to mind it, if the way he kept sleeping was any indication. Eugeo, on the other hand, couldn't stand it and, sometime in the middle of the night, he'd shut the window.

The end result was that the room inside was now a stuffy, sunlit place where a person could barely breathe, much less live. He wasn't sure how Kazuto was pulling it off, sleeping with the thin covers pulled all the way over his shoulders, but Eugeo had never thought he'd be so bothered by the heat, though a part of him did find its presence soothing.

Opening the window, unfortunately, was not helping when the sun was directly entering the room. In the end, he had decided to get up, leave his things in the room and head downstairs in hope he would find somebody else awake.

Miss Rosa's Inn was a three storey building made entirely out of stone, although the design itself wasn't something Eugeo had seen before. Both on the inside and the outside, the walls were covered in patterns that were ironed out the point one wouldn't be able to make a difference between one piece and another, certainly something that had to have been done by intensive application of an affinity of some kind.

Inside the building, everything was made out of wood—quality wood, at that. The handrails, the window frames, the door and even something that oddly reminded him of a fireplace, though it did have a strange shiny layer of some kind under the wooden parts.

Kazuto and Eugeo's room was on the first floor while the ground floor was reserved for dozens of tables and chairs so people could eat comfortably.

It was chilly down there, he learned as he climbed down, and it was not a bad feeling at all.

Three of the tables were busy, with a slim waitress running from one table to another with a large tray in her arms, a large bottle and several glasses stacked on it until she finally let it rest on the final table, taking the large bottle of cherry colored drink and pouring it into three separate glasses. She smiled then, an expression that looked very lovely on her young face, framed by short brown hair, before she picked up the empty tray and took it back behind the bar.

It was only after she was out of his eyesight that Eugeo recognized the people she'd been serving, namely Harry and Issin. There was a third glass, too, but whoever had been sitting with them was nowhere to be found.

"Eh, good morning," he said, taking the only unoccupied chair timidly.

"You look like you haven't slept at all," Harry remarked as he took a gulp of his drink. "Mm… this is good. Miss! Hey, Miss! One more glass over here!"

Before Eugeo could even say a word, the same waitress came, her wide smile revealing pure white teeth. Eugeo quickly looked away.

"You didn't have to order for me," he said quietly.

"It would do you well to relax a bit," Harry told him knowingly.

Eugeo didn't think relaxing was going to make things any better, not really, but he decided that a change of topic was in order. He glanced at the strange drink given to him. "What is that?"

"That, our young friend," Issin said dramatically, "is one of the area's famous wines. Not sure about the name. We told the girl to give us the best she had. Go ahead, try it."

This time, Eugeo studied the glass with even more caution. It was filled to the brim, thanks to the certain older merchant who had a decidedly wacky grin on his face.

"I don't think I'm allowed to drink alcohol," he told Issin flatly. In fact, he shouldn't even be considering it. There were strict rules about that in school and drinking alcohol could result in some serious punishments.

Issin laughed shrilly. Eugeo felt his muscles tense.

"You're old enough to try out for Aincrad, you're old enough to drink. Don't let the stupid old village customs stop you."

At that, the boy's eyes widened. He knew that out of all members of Fuurinkazan, Klein, Issin and Kunimittz used to attend the famed Aincrad Academy. They'd told them along the way, spending some of the time explaining them how the first round of exams worked and what was expected of them, the tiny things that most of the examiners there considered necessary knowledge and what tricks they should never let themselves fall for. Eugeo tilted his head, biting his lip as he looked at the cherry red liquid.

"So alcoholic beverages are allowed in Aincrad?"

The grin on Issin's face now looked several times more amused. "Nope. Not that it stops the students."

Eugeo let out a sigh. Really, he should have been expecting that. It was exactly the kind of answer he would have gotten if he'd ask his brothers, or perhaps even Kazuto, if was in the mood to tease people.

Harry stopped nursing the drink and sighed. "Geez, just take it. It's not like you're going to get drunk from a sip."

It's against the rules—was what Eugeo thought, but didn't say. He did, partially due to their expecting gazes and partially due to his own curiosity, reach out and take the glass, reluctantly taking a small sip. His primary impression as the beverage slipped down his throat was _ugh, bitter! _But there was the soft cherry aroma that he could feel and, putting it together, it didn't taste too bad. Still, he put the glass away and quickly asked a question.

"Where is everybody else?"

Issin sighed as he dropped his head on his palm, leaning the elbow on the table with strength that nearly knocked over the wine glasses.

"Sleeping. Klein went to wake them up. I'd say we have about ten minutes before they start showing up."

"That long?"

"Well, normally, it's longer than that. We have a tight schedule to keep and tomorrow morning to get to Cremen if we want to keep up to it."

Eugeo's eyes widened. "Eh? But isn't Cremen half-way to Algade from here? Can we possibly get there in a day?"

"It's a bit less than that, but yeah, we can, assuming Kunimittz doesn't oversleep again. I guess the bad thing about it is that we'll probably only get a few hours of sleep for the night, but we need a clear pass to Algade. What with the crowds that'll be forming now that exams are about to start, we need to get it as soon as possible. And they only give out those things on workdays, before noon."

"A clear pass?" Eugeo muttered in confusion.

"Those damn pass cards, stupid pieces of paper," Issin grumbled. "Some new security regulations started out because of the rebels and now, if you want to enter Algade, you need to have that pass. It's just a piece of paper with a crest, nothing more. Urbus doesn't even give them out. The closest place we can get them is Cremen and if we want them, we have to get there before noon. Otherwise we'll have to wait for a whole day and that'll put us on an even tighter schedule."

"Oh…" Eugeo sighed. "I haven't heard anything about this."

"We didn't either, until we showed up at Algade without it and they wouldn't let us in last year," Issin explained. "You and Kazuto have your school papers, right?"

Eugeo nodded. "We need them for signing up for the exams."

"Good. That's one less issue we have to worry about."

Eugeo briefly wondered if other issues had something to do with those three strangers from the night before, when something occurred to him, pushing the first thought to the back of his mind. Before anyone could say a word, he stood up.

"I'll be right back."

There was another sleepy head that had to be woken up.

After he got upstairs, it took him less than ten minutes to wake Kazuto and make sure all of his things and clothes were packed and ready for the time when they headed out. It took Kazuto longer than that, as he'd wasted time continuously trying to push his head through the sleeve of his t-shirt.

Eugeo let him be. If there was one thing Kazuto was not, it was a morning person. It showed in the way he kept pausing his packing process every few seconds so that he could stretch his muscles while complaining about there not being enough hours in a day. Eugeo almost offered to follow him to the bathroom, just in case he decided to fall asleep somewhere in the middle of the hall, but he receded. He didn't think it was that bad, yet.

They went to the dining area several minutes later, Kazuto not even trying to hold back a yawn as they climbed down the stairs.

Instead of three, only one table was busy now. The change in seating order did not escape Eugeo's notice. Instead of four, there were now six wooden chairs surrounding the table, two of them empty. Issin was still there and so were Klein, Kunimittz and Dale, but there seemed to be no trace of either Harry or Dynamm.

"Morning," Klein said, giving them a wave.

"Good morning." Kazuto replied and took the first empty seat, but Eugeo hesitated.

"Where are…?" he asked, but rather than specifying who, he made a hand gesture that probably didn't make any sense. Thankfully, they seemed to understand what he was trying to say.

"Sent Harry and Dynamm to pick up the supplies, they should be back soon," Klein answered. "We have a real hot day ahead of us. Gonna need everything we can get. You boys hungry?"

"Yes," Kazuto said. He accepted the piece of paper that Kunimittz offered him.

That was when Eugeo sighed and finally sat down as well, throwing a glance in the direction of the wine he'd tasted, before quickly looking away and choosing to focus his attention on his breakfast. The paper in Kazuto's hands, a menu of some kind, didn't have anything particularly interesting listed, all the usual lunch meals such as soup and hash, a strange specialty named hamburger that Eugeo had never heard of before and three more meals, only one of them actually familiar to the village boy.

Eugeo didn't like hash. It always made his stomach feel bad and soups never quite succeeded in sating his hunger, so he decided that an omelet, the last dish on the menu, would do, without any additions even though there was a salad listed as optional.

Almost twenty minutes after making their orders, the young maid served them. Having been intently listening to the conversation going on between Klein and Kazuto, about the deciding duels they would have to go through during the entrance exams, Eugeo didn't pay much attention to what was being put in front of them.

"That's just about it, really," Klein was saying. "The third round is all about duels. Everyone goes through six duels and if you want to qualify for the final examination round, you have to have four victories."

"Are there any limitations?" Kazuto asked thoughtfully. "I mean, even our school duels had about a dozen of rules you had to respect."

"Nah, not really. At least, there wasn't in my time. Three strikes. Whoever gets them first, wins. Well, there's the five minute time limit that applied in the last three duels, but I'm pretty sure rules changed from then. What with the new rule and all, last I heard was that the time limit was three minutes for all duels."

"And if a duel ends in a draw?" Eugeo wondered.

Klein sighed. "Judges decide. And I wouldn't say it's exactly a good thing, but it's apparently the only viable option. Bull, in my opinion, but that's what you get for—"

Eugeo never learned why that was the way things worked, because before Klein could complete the sentence, there was a scream. A loud, ear-piercing yell of horror that came just beyond the glass window positioned behind Klein and Dale's back. For the time it took Eugeo to open his mouth in surprise, three of the four present Fuurinkazan members were on their feet, Kunimittz—being the closest to the exit door—in the lead.

Eugeo and Kazuto exchanged one look before jumping on their feet, the last trace of sleepiness vanishing from Kazuto's face as he gritted his teeth.

Outside the inn, Dale and Kunimittz were standing beside a woman, an older lady in dark clothes and with a veil over her head, trying to get the answers out of her. In front of them, Eugeo saw an argument breaking out, an argument that Klein and Issin made their way to interfere with.

Less than two meter distance separated them when the sound of shattering glass reached Eugeo's ears. What he'd seen happening had ended quickly, so quickly that he wasn't even certain if he'd really seen it happen. But a scream from the inside of the inn made it pretty clear that he'd seen it right. Somebody had been punched through the glass window.

A feat like that wasn't impossible, or so Eugeo had heard. But the glassy substance that windows were usually made of was of high quality and he remembered that the window at school had only had a small crack on it after one of his fellow classmates had thrown a chair at it in a fit of anger. Just thinking of the strength needed to break the glass so completely left Eugeo shuddering.

He couldn't decide. Should he stay and watch? Find out what was going on? Or should he run inside and check on the injured?

A brawl seemed to be breaking out while two men, one tall, with broad shoulders and no hair and the other shorter, but looking equally as strong prevented Klein and Issin from getting any closer. However, that did nothing to hide the image of three other people ganging up on another person.

_What? What is going on?_

Belatedly, Eugeo realized the cornered person was Dynamm.


	4. Chapter 3: Street Fight

Harry was not the kind of person known for his physical strength or brilliant mind. He was not known for his incredible deductive skills, nor was he known for his tendency to point out the obvious things to the rest of his insane guild buddies. He was just your usual, short, skinny guy with usual brown hair and perhaps a bit strange hairstyle (he happened to like wearing a ponytail, thank you very much). There was nothing that would make him stand out, especially not in a town he's only visited once before and hadn't really spoken to anybody except for that one time he tried to talk to a real nice girl, with devastating results.

Or maybe not. For all seventeen years and thirty days how long he'd been alive, there seemed to some kind of a magnet attached to his butt, a magnet attracted by any kind of potential trouble.

Try as much as he liked, something _always _went wrong around him. Most of the time it was 'the funny' wrong, like accidentally stepping on the foot of somebody who annoyed him a lot, or maybe accidentally pouring a bucket full of water on their head or generally getting in their way. Not funny when people started yelling at him, but hilarious after the danger has passed.

And then there were the times where the tinniest actions had immense consequences, such as the time he'd unintentionally missed the entrance exams for one of the academies in Salemburg, the most beautiful city of Central region and probably the most beautiful city in the whole world. For a boy who had been living in a small village Talun at the very border of Central and Northern Limits, visiting such a city was an incredible experience and he'd had so much to see—keeping a track of time was difficult when you didn't have a wristwatch. He'd reached the academy five minutes after the exams had started, but nobody would let him in.

Because of that, his father had then thrown both him and his mother out of the house and—doing the only thing they could, they'd moved to Taft, where his grandparents used to live. He'd lived with her until the time he joined Fuurinkazan, but he had a feeling she'd never quite forgiven his troublemaking habits, no matter how unintentional they really were.

This was one of those times when good intentions happened to have bad consequences.

He and Dynamm had finally finished with shopping and were struggling to carry one large water container per hand, some fruit and deep frozen meet, everything they were going to need for the trip to Cremen, for the road there had very few places for rest. They were going to need as much food and water as they could get.

They'd been talking about—predictably enough—Aincrad, and how excited Harry was that he was going to get to see it. Fuurinakazan had, as a guild, travelled to Algade many times before, but Harry had joined only two months ago. He'd travelled with them to Friben, a town a bit further north of Urbus, but that was as far as he'd gone. And if what he'd heard was correct, then visiting Aincrad, the parts that didn't belong to the academy proper, was allowed during weekdays.

Dynamm, the 'crazy moustache' guy and Harry's second favorite person in the guild could really only sigh at his enthusiasm, mentioning that he was acting more childish than either of the kids they were taking along. Frankly, Harry couldn't argue that. The kids had the exams to worry about. He didn't. He could act as giddy and excited as much as he liked.

Which is why, naturally, something had to go wrong.

They'd just entered the street where their inn was located, a paved, not overly wide street with lampposts on every few meters of distance. Being off the main street, it was mostly devoid of people, or at least it should have been. Harry discovered otherwise the hard way, when he bumped into somebody with his shoulder. He probably wouldn't have even paid attention to the group otherwise, but the bump was pretty tough and he nearly dropped the container.

Regaining his grip a moment before it would all spill, Harry sighed in relief. But those were heavy containers so he put them both down and sighed.

"Sorry, I wasn't—"

"Well just what were you thinking, you piece of—"

Harry looked up in surprise, noting that the person he bumped into was a part of a bigger group, though not much older or taller than him. His manners, however, seemed to be severely lacking, to the point where the man standing beside him, who had to be several years his senior, had to pull him back.

"Shinkawa, shut up."

"But the stupid brat—"

Harry frowned at the way he was being addressed. Everyone over the age of sixteen, if they were not attending an academy of any kind, were considered to be rightful adults. And this guy hardly looked much older.

He prepared to argue back, point out that he already _apologized_ and that he hadn't bumped into him on purpose, when something caught his eye.

The group of people in front of him—five of them—were a strangely varied bunch. The person he'd bumped into couldn't have been much older than Harry despite the way he was acting, and he had a strange fang-like object in his ear. The other one who'd tried to calm him down had to be at least in his mid-twenties and his clothes were leagues better than what the Shinkawa person was wearing, made of smooth material, cotton, maybe, that seemed rather fitting in this heat. He also had a tattoo on his wrist, a clear sign he had to be of noble origin.

The other two members were just as odd. Twins, that's what they had to be. They looked more like bears, tall with broad shoulders and muscles of the kind Harry had never seen before, not even on the miners. But what reinforced his impression of bears were more the hairs on their neck and arms visible under their short sleeved light blue and deep brown colored shirts, even though their heads were nearly devoid of any. Carrying a water container or five probably wouldn't even make them sweat, let alone exhaust them.

The final member of the gang was a girl, about Harry's height, well endowed and well dressed in a clean white shirt and knee-length skirt, though most of her face was hidden under the hood of her cloak. How she wasn't dying from the heat in that thing, Harry would never know. In her hand was a knife—or maybe a dagger of some kind Harry hadn't seen before—held under the throat of an older lady who looked like she could have been crying for hours.

Connecting the pieces from there was easy enough.

Harry did not, in any way, consider himself to be a courageous or an incredibly intelligent person. If anything, he was completely stupid. Because the worst thing one could do when they encountered a group of armed robbers was call them out on their bull. And that was exactly what he did.

"Hey, what the?! Let her go!"

Reactions were instantaneous.

One of the muscled guys, the one in the brown shirt, grabbed Harry's neck before he could do much more than drop the fruit bag, lifting him in the air to the point only the tips of his toes were touching the ground.

Harry strangled out a cough.

"Man… for a guy… your size… you're crazy fast."

Some kind of a commotion was taking place everywhere around him, but the most Harry could see was the angry face of the guy trying to strangle him. Dynamm's shout, "Get help! Run!" reached him and Harry felt a bit of relief that at least a veteran like him didn't get caught so easily.

His capturer seemed to be of two minds on what he was supposed to do with him, constantly looking over his shoulder to the woman and the well-dressed man who were most probably the leaders, and were at the moment too busy dealing with Dynamm, who, thankfully, had remembered to at least take along his dagger.

"Let him go," he said, nothing in his face betraying anything other than frustration.

"You let Shinkawa go first, and maybe we'll agree to let your friend live," the woman hissed.

Taking a better look, Harry could clearly see that the tip of Dynamm's dagger was right under the neck of the Shinkawa person and one smooth movement would be more than enough to end his life. He was pretty sure that Dynamm also wasn't the kind of person to do that thing, but it wasn't something one could guess by looking at his face.

Shinkawa, rather than showing fear, had his young features distorted into a grimace, whether from pain or anger, or possibly both. His wrist was twisted to the point where it was only a matter of time before it would snap and the dagger wasn't leaving him much space to breathe.

"Sorry, I don't like that deal," Dynamm said.

"Well, we can let you kill him if you like. Boss?"

Just as Harry had thought, she addressed the man who was clearly a member of a minor noble family, now that he was taking the time to pay attention to details. He was far too collected and relaxed for somebody whose robbery attempt had just fallen apart and the tattoo over his wrist, two hammers, but it didn't resemble the town Coat of Arms much.

Other than the woman, however, none of them seemed to have any kind of weapon at hand, or anything else useful, which was probably the reason Harry and Dynamm were still alive. The woman, however, seemed more than eager to use it if given opportunity.

The leader frowned, brushing his fingers through his short cropped charcoal hair.

"Let them go both at the same time?" he offered.

"Sorry, I don't like that deal, either. Seems kinda unfair, seeing as there five of you and two of us."

The leader hummed in amusement. "Point, there."

Harry had issues finding anything amusing about this situation. His neck hurt and, thankfully, the guy at least let him stand on his own feet, but that wasn't changing the fact he could only barely breathe and the tips of his fingers were just a bit away from—

Resisting the urge to smack himself and commending the big guy's own stupidity, Harry extended his arm and fingers until they were barely, only barely, gripping the water container. He gripped the big guy's wrist, a pointless action that would not set him free, but it allowed the rest of his body to move just enough so that his right hand could grab the handle of the container.

The container in total weighed about eight kilos, though seven of that was the water inside. The plug they'd had for it, as small as it was, had been lost a while ago so they had to watch out not to spill anything. Containers like these were typically used for long journeys and it would take a long time to fill one completely. However, Harry still thought about his life as a bit more important than the stupid container and he doubted anyone would blame him later.

Gritting his teeth as his lungs burned, he poured all the strength he had in his right arm, lifting the heavy metal object from the ground. The big guy noticed what he was doing, but it was too late, at that point. Harry gave it a wild swing, feeling something _snap_ in his arm as the heavy object collided with the big man's head and water spilled over both of them. The hand around Harry's neck retracted and he took in large gulps of air, taking several steps back and nearly falling down to his knees.

Having noticed Harry's intended actions before anybody else had, Shinkawa also seemed to have acted, using the moment everyone's attention was on Harry to step on Dynamm's foot and push his elbow in his abdomen, successfully releasing himself.

Harry noticed the move the big guy made on him at the last second and ducked under the heavy fist, though it would have missed him either way. Even if he still conscious somehow, he seemed to have trouble aiming straight.

Harry didn't care. He grabbed the second water container with the intention to repeat the same action, but he didn't even move it, his right arm burning in pain to the point where he felt like it was being ripped off.

It was enough of a distraction for the big guy to grab him by the collar and slam him into the nearest stone wall. Lights flashed before Harry's eyes and the images in front of him seemed to double, even triple, his head hurting as much as his arm did.

He clumsily tried to bite his attacker and failed, but his knee successfully dug into the man's groin.

Collar free, Harry staggered away, using the wall for support even as everything around him seemed to be spinning and dancing like it was a festival in his home village.

_Since when were there so many people around?_

It took a moment to realize that he was seeing double and that the girl with the knife seemed to have decided to rush after him—or rather, after the older woman he could see retreating away.

Pushing himself away from the wall and in her path, Harry nearly fell down on top of her, succeeding in as much as grabbing her wrist. He lost the hold on her less than a second later when she whipped her arm in a sharp motion that managed to look both endearing and exaggerated.

Less than a second later was when the force homed in. In a brief moment, he felt his hair whirl around his face before he was lifted off his feet and the sense of dizziness momentarily disappeared. He was flying backwards, he realized, but it felt good, if only because he didn't have to struggle to stand straight.

A scream reached his ears, leaving him less than a second to wonder what was going on, before he felt the back of his neck, head and then shoulders hit against something.

His final landing hurt more than anything in his life had ever before. It hurt so much that he wanted to scream, curse everything he could, if only he actually had any air in his lungs to do it. There was sharp pain in his back, his shoulders, but surprisingly not his head, or maybe he'd already gone numb in that area. He couldn't do much more than make a low sound deep in his throat.

When he briefly opened his eyes, it was to see the blurry image of that pretty face of the brown haired bartender who'd served them at the inn and he had to wonder if he was actually dreaming. She looked surprised what with that sweet gesture when her hand covered her open mouth. She looked worried.

Man, he couldn't let a girl worry.

"Hey," he croaked and smiled, maybe to convince her that he was okay, maybe to convince himself.

Then she disappeared in blackness.

* * *

Kazuto wasn't sure what was happening, but when Kunimittz sprinted back inside the inn as a scream sounded, he followed after him. A moment later, so did Eugeo.

Inside, sprawled over the floor after having fallen in through the window and knocked down everything that had been on the table where they'd been sitting, was Harry. He had multiple tiny cuts on his arms, one on his forehead, bleeding quite a bit and his eyes were half open.

The waitress was kneeling over him, in horror looking over at Kunimittz as he knelt next to her. She was struggling to say something, but no coherent words were coming out, instead sounding more like a breathless babble.

"Alive," Kunimittz noted and there was an incredible amount of relief in his voice which Kazuto normally would not have come to associate with the older man. Kunimittz had seemed to be taking everything in stride and like a joking matter, hearing him sound so relieved made it evident how serious the situation really was.

He turned, spotting the two boys lingering, then reached for his pocket. A moment later, he took something out and threw it at them.

Kazuto nearly missed the object—which turned out to be a room key—and looked at Kunimittz in askance.

"First floor, third or fourth door on the right. Get any weapons you can find. And a first aid kit."

Kazuto nodded and immediately made his way towards the stairs.

"I'll go take ours," Eugeo informed him.

Kazuto hummed an affirmative, but he doubted the other boy heard him. His own mind was preoccupied, the thought _they're going to fight_ going through his head like a mantra of some kind, leaving him at the same time itching for a weapon and running as far as his feet would carry him.

For all his experience with swordplay, and he had plenty of it, spending hours daily honing his skills and continuously ranking among the best duelists at his school during all the years except for the final one, Kazuto had never participated in a real fight. Swinging a practice sword and doing it according to the strict rules so that no serious injuries would be caused to the other party could not possibly compare to something like this.

He no longer had a practice sword, however. The only one he had, he'd given to Suguha, because he was sincerely hoping that she could come with him to Aincrad next year. He'd even promised her that, if she couldn't convince their mother, he'd try to do it instead.

So rather than a practice sword, he'd brought the Anneal Blade, the only object in their house that could be said to belong to Kirigaya Minetaka, or at least it used to. It was an old sword, one that, according to his mother, his father had stopped using years ago, having gotten a brand new one when he joined Lady Akemi's personal guard. It was the only thing she'd managed to salvage before they had to leave Raisel, a small village at the edge of the Forest of Cedar where his mother had grown up.

Kazuto couldn't remember much from that time. What he could remember was his dad's smile that one time he'd pat him on the head after an exhausting day and a scary fire consuming a forest, though he wasn't sure whether the latter really happened or had just been a nightmare.

Either way, the Anneal Blade became his primary training weapon at all times, except during the duels and sparring. Thinking of heading to Aincrad without it had left him feeling edgy and nervous, to the point he didn't even take Klein's offer to leave it with all the other weapons, preferring to carry it on his back until he'd finally given in after six hours of exhausting riding.

Now, he was sorely regretting not having it with him when the chaos started out.

He found Klein and Kunimittz's room on the first try, inserting the key and nearly breaking down the door in an attempt to get inside.

He found the weapons resting in their sheaths, leaned against a small nightstand. He recognized Klein's sword, the curved blade of the kind he'd never seen before. Klein had identified it as a katana, a curved weapon which design had originated from the City of Selari, a city west of Algade. Kunimittz's sword was shorter and, according to him, known as an arming sword, though it was slowly going out of use do to some of its disadvantages. Kazuto didn't really know which ones, but it felt significantly lighter in his hand than his own sword did. He didn't dwell on it much.

He met with Eugeo right outside, his friend giving him a worried look.

"Come on," Kazuto said.

Eugeo nodded. They were halfway down the stairs when Kazuto froze.

"What? What's wrong?"

"First aid kit. I forgot. Do you know what it looks like?"

"A wooden box, I think. There should be some bandages in it, but I'm not sure. I'll go get it."

Kazuto nodded and passed him the room key. "Thanks."

He accepted the Anneal Blade and clumsily put it over his shoulder before rushing back down.

Kunimittz and the waitress were still lingering over Harry, but at least the youngest fulltime member of Fuurinkazan seemed to be awake now, judging by the pained grimace on his face.

"Kunimittz—" Kazuto started.

"Take them to Klein," he said immediately.

"Right. And Harry?"

"Fine enough for him to keep complaining," Kunimittz said.

The other party groaned and, in a raspy voice said, "Hurts."

Kunimittz snorted. "Where exactly?"

"Everywhere."

"Well, you heard him." Kunimittz took a deep breath. "Go, Kazuto. The guards should be here soon, but being unarmed is not a good thing, not now."

Kazuto nodded and sprinted outside. He was pretty sure it would not be a good thing if things got even more out of hand. It was already bad enough as it was.

However, as soon as he was out, he really only had a moment to deduce that there were three people running, two of them about as tall as the inn entrance door and equally as wide. They were running straight at him.

* * *

Klein gritted his teeth. He'd had a bad feeling the entire morning, but seeing two different people punch one of his friends in the face did not account for a good morning, let alone the rest of the day. Dynamm had managed to score a hit of his own, but as a result he'd lost his dagger in the struggle and would have been doomed if he had not been a skilled telekinetic.

As he was pretty skilled, he'd managed to successfully knock out one of the assailants by knocking a streetlight down on his head.

But now he had two guys on him, one of them big enough that Klein wouldn't have wanted to fight even with every possible advantage.

In the meantime, another big guy was getting in his way and Klein was sorely tempted to do something he knew he'd regret, but he couldn't let this continue. Issin had gone to fight the girl with the dagger after she'd tried to lunge at Dale, or rather, the woman hiding behind him. Issin was keeping her busy on his own now for the two of them had gone to look for the town guards, and his opponent didn't look very happy about it.

Klein was on his own, too, though his opponent didn't seem to be very willing to engage in direct combat. A good thing, because Klein was pretty sure he'd be flattened with earth in that case, but he also couldn't help but notice a area of dark red skin over his cheek and temple and the fact that his cheekbone looked slightly deformed. However he'd got that, it had to have hurt a lot.

Klein didn't have time to focus on that, though. They were beating up his buddy right before his eyes and he'd be damned if he let them get away with it.

"You asked for it," he said, partially to warn the big guy in front of him, partially to reassure himself. Then he swung his fist.

For a moment, the big guy looked really proud that he caught it without harm, even though it was a clumsy catch. As either a sign of his dominance or whatever, he tried to twist Klein's wrist. It was about the worst mistake he could have made.

He drew his hand back, scream as high pitched as a little girl's, grasping his it with teary eyes and glaring at Klein, or rather, at his fist and the fire burning around it.

For a fire affinity, Klein's abilities with it were rather limited. Producing flames large in size and doing that continuously exhausted him a lot, but for that reason, there were very few things his flame couldn't burn down completely. His current obstacle of a man was very, very lucky Klein didn't have the time to focus on him, otherwise only ash would have remained of his hand.

Klein crossed the distance to his next target, but the man noticed him in time to miss the fist going for his face. He jumped away from Dynamm, lifting his arms in a guard, but it was obvious he wasn't very skilled at close combat. Dark grey eyes narrowed and the look on his face, previously angry, now was livid. Klein didn't miss the wrist tattoo. He almost cursed their bad luck.

"Well, damn it. Should've known you weren't from around here, but to think you're them…" the member of one of Urbus' royal families said.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Klein demanded, one eye on his enemy and other on Dynamm as his buddy used the wall as support to stand up. He was only mildly aware of the big guy in a light shirt standing off in the distance, eyes moving from Klein to his ally and then Dynamm, as if uncertain of what he was supposed to do.

"Nothing," the dark haired enemy said, brushing his fingers through his hair. "But to think that off all the other possible groups, we'd fight the Fuurinkazan, I guess we're really out of luck today."

Klein opened his mouth to respond, demand to know how was it that he knew who they were, but the man's voice suffocated any other sound made anywhere close.

"Lia, retreat!" he yelled.

Klein turned in time to see the girl nod and whip out her hand, a gust of wind successfully sending Issin backwards until his back collided with the stone wall of a nearby house. Wind affinity, obviously, and very strong at that.

"Stop her!" Klein yelled, though whom he was yelling that to, he wasn't sure. She was too far for him to do anything and the distance, unfortunately, was nothing for her. The gust of wind she sent his way knocked him back into Dynamm and allowed her allies to follow after her without hindrance. Klein tried to get up quickly, but he knew he couldn't leave Dynamm there even if he wanted to go after them.

"Issin!" he yelled, but it put the girl on alarm, too, and she sent another gust of wind his way, knocking him back down.

One of the big guys, the one who had been standing off to the side almost the whole time, stopped to help their youngest member stand straight, the boy who'd gotten the streetlight into the head. When it failed, he threw him over his shoulder before proceeding to trot after the others.

That was when Klein noticed something at the door of the inn and, getting a better look, recognized the person as Kazuto. He also recognized the sheath of his beloved katana and Kunimittz's sword, but there was no time to ask of Kazuto to throw it. They were heading his way. The woman had already gone far ahead, but the rest of them were just meters away from the boy. Even if Klein had screamed a warning, it would have been too late.

But Kazuto was either quicker on the uptake than he'd given him credit for, or he was just acting in panic. He dropped the two extra weapons and drew his own sword, his wide swing narrowly missing the man who stood out as the leader. He was going too fast to stop or turn in order to attack, but his voice carried.

"Taki!"

The big guy with the facial injury groaned in response. He did not slow down, as Klein had been expecting him to. It was more as if he was intending on just running over him and stomping him into the ground. Or so Klein had been expecting.

What he did was the mimic of what his twin had done, grabbing the front of Kazuto's shirt and throwing the boy over his shoulder as he continued running. Kazuto yelped, kicked and screamed, but none of that seemed to help. He even tried to get a better grip on his sword and use it to attack, but the muscled man then reached back, trying to grab his wrist.

Kazuto manage to wriggle a bit and look behind, his wide eyes meeting Klein's for a moment before the group made a turn left and disappeared behind the buildings.

Metallic sound rang clearly throughout the silent street and Issin, the closest to the street corner, pushed himself off the wall, running after them, though he may as well had been staggering.

Klein watched, dumbfounded, before his attention was once again on Dynamm as he coughed.

"Well, damn. I don't think we've ever been this pathetic before," he said.

Klein's fists tightened. "We're going after them. As soon as Dale returns with the guards, we're…" he trailed off at the sight of Issin walking back into the street, head lowered, a familiar sword in his hand.

He walked over to Klein slowly, probably not capable of moving any faster, holding out the sword which Klein knew should belong to Kazuto. It was the Anneal Blade and Klein could only wonder how a mere village boy could have gotten in possession of such a valuable weapon, but it was not something he wanted to ask about.

"I lost them," Issin admitted. "I saw the first turn, but they know their way around. They know it too well."

"We have to find him," Klein said.

"We won't be able to make it in time."

"I don't care. We're not leaving this place until we're all accounted for."

He met Issin's eyes with his own, daring him to voice any kind of disagreement, but what he got instead was something else entirely.

"Good," Issin said. _It's nice to know your priorities are still in order_—went unsaid, but not unnoticed.

Klein nodded. He knew Issin still had issues with some of the decision he'd made in the past few weeks. The reasons for his disagreements were logical and based on good arguments, though some of them had brought Klein's decision making in question. It was comforting to know that they agreed on this much.

Now all they had to do was wait for guards to come, before they got arrested for carrying weapons, using their affinities in offensive purpose and generally causing unrest on the streets. They didn't have any offenses here and they had the official permission to carry weapons signed by the watch of Algade, but that would all be for naught if they were the ones accused of starting this mess, a very likely outcome. Which reminded him of another important thing.

"Dynamm, where's Harry?"

"What? You didn't see him fly through the window?"

Klein froze. "Wait, that was him? He was the one punched through the glass?"

"_Punched?_ More like _blown_ through it. I've never seen somebody with that good control of the wind. Think we could use it to identify her?"

Klein shook his head. "Wind affinities aren't that rare. But you saw it, didn't you? I don't know who that guy was, but he's from a minor noble family. Those are the only families that allow wrist tattoos, if I remember the classification correctly."

"Pretty much," Dynam agreed. "Doesn't make this any less of a problem, though. Not even the guards will stand on our side if they've got strong connections. At best, we'll be thrown out of the town before we can find the kid."

Klein gritted his teeth. He took several deep breaths, an attempt to calm down at least a little, but it wasn't working out too well.

"I know," he said. "I know. Come on. We have to get you to a doctor."

"It's fine."

"It's not fine. You look like you're going to fall over any moment. Issin, can you watch over him while I go look for a doctor? Or a healer, if there's any available."

Issin nodded. "Just make sure to get him to Harry first. I think he's the worst off."

Klein nodded. It was the least he could do at this point.

* * *

"Well, damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it."

The small crossroads was located somewhere farther off the main streets. The four directions it stretched towards were all narrow and dirty, a clear sign that it was not a place where most people liked to come. The sun that was at this point pretty high in the sky didn't reach the street, leaving it relatively pleasant temperature wise.

Most of the surrounding buildings were the so-called apartment buildings, about two storey high and most of them didn't have windows at that particular side. Judging by the trash swept in the corners, it was not a place frequented by many people, even less so by children.

A few meters away from the crossroads, at the back of one of the buildings, were a door, but they lacked any kind of knob that could open them. Right in front of the door were two stairs, the exact place where the leader of the group who that had pretty much kidnapped Kazuto had chosen to sit.

"God damn it!"

His fist made a dull sound when it connected with the wooden door and two people standing the closest made a hesitant step back.

"Taki, just what the hell were you thinking?"

Kazuto didn't need to turn much to know who exactly he was addressing to. The giant of a man who had taken it upon himself to carry Kazuto along scratched the back of his head while his other hand firmly held the back of Kazuto's shirt, leaving him with his feet dangling in the air.

Kazuto knew pretty well that he was neither tall nor heavy as most other kids his age. Part of it was due to his low immunity. He was usually the first to catch a cold and he simply couldn't bring himself to eat much even when healthy. A part of it was due to the time he'd spent in a hospital little after the final school year had started, at the end of the ninth month. He'd spent nearly two months there, eating only the so called healthy food and in small doses because the doctors were concerned that the food could possibly affect their diagnosis. When he had finally been released, he'd been skin and bones to the point his teachers had been concerned about how well the doctors had done their job. He'd immediately gone back to harsh training in order to make up for the strength he'd lost, but even now he wasn't sure if he was as good as he'd been before the hospital.

Actually, if anything, his current status of a prisoner didn't bother him nearly as much as the fact that he was hanging in the air for almost five minutes now and the person at fault for that didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest. It felt both degrading and insulting and no amount of kicking and trashing had managed to set him free yet.

The giant named Taki had a firm grip. Kazuto only wished he was as smart as he was strong.

"Sorry, boss," Taki said.

"Sorry isn't going to cut it! What did I tell you?"

"You told me that if a man is standing in my way, I should push them, not pick them up," he replied.

"And what did you do?"

Reluctantly glancing towards the giant's face, Kazuto could see that the man was clearly confused.

"Taki, _what_ did you do?"

"But… but… He's a kid!"

He extended the arm gripping Kazuto's shirt forward, nearly brining him face to face with the leader. Just a little bit closer and Kazuto might've been able to score a pretty good kick, though he was sure that wasn't going to help him get away. The last time he tried something similar, he'd ended up held in the air like a cat.

"A kid with a sword. A kid with a _frigging _sword. And if I saw that right, it was the frigging Anneal Blade, too. You don't just _pick up_ kids with swords. And you most definitely _do not _throw away valuable swords. Is that clear?"

"Yes, boss. I will not pick up kids with swords. I will not throw swords."

The leader sighed before covering his eyes with his hand. "Okay. Lia, how is Shinkawa doing?"

"I'm fine!" the person who Kazuto presumed was Shinkawa answered, only to get a smack in the back of his head.

"Shut up, brat. You've got a fine bruise there, you're lucky you don't have a concussion. And your reckless escape attempt is exactly what earned you that cut on the neck. Now keep still and let me at least wipe the blood away!"

Shinkawa hissed something under his breath, but if the woman had heard it, she didn't show it.

"How is your head?" the leader asked and it took a few moments for mostly everyone to realize who he was referring to. Taki, of course, was the only one who didn't, until his twin brother elbowed him in ribs.

"Oh. Uh. Hurts. I sometimes see double."

"Lia, you don't happen to know a good doctor? Who hopefully won't ask too many questions?"

"The last time you asked me that, we got chased out of the office the moment he saw you. Why don't you ask your sister for that? I'm pretty sure she's good at immediate care."

"We are _not _involving her in this shit. And, come to think of it, what the hell are we going to do with him?"

Kazuto tensed at the finger pointed at him, as if that gesture suddenly placed the blame of everything that had happened on his back.

_You could let me go_, he wanted to say. It seemed like a reasonable thing to say.

"We could let him go," said Taki, much to Kazuto's surprise.

"Yeah, not happening," Shinkawa said.

"Why ever not? It's not like we need him. Besides, look at him. He looks like a good kid. Hasn't even caused as much trouble as you'd expect," Lia said.

"Except that he had _the _Anneal Blade. You don't carry that around just anywhere," the leader pointed out.

Lia snorted. "You do if you're trying out for a better academy, Hiro. They usually look upon you more favorably if you've got a weapon with some background. Well, they used to. Don't know how much that changed in the past few years."

"Well, either way, we're not getting it back now," the leader—named Hiro, apparently—sighed. "Might as well let the kid go. Or, wait a sec. Kid?"

Kazuto bit the inside of his lip to stop himself from making a comment that might get him in more trouble. His eyes met with the leader's, but he didn't say anything. He tried to keep his facial expression neutral, make it clear he wasn't scared. At least, not anymore.

"Do you happen to be a member of Fuurinkazan? Or were you somebody who got into this mess by accident?"

Kazuto knew what the intelligent thing to say in this moment would be. But denying any kind of membership would be outright lying in their faces and if something had been ingrained in him, it was that lying mostly tended to cause trouble. Before he could say anything, the woman interfered.

"What makes you think—no, never mind. Asahina made it clear she won't allow underage people to work for her and pretty much everybody who knows about her also knows about her ties to Fuurinkazan. If she really allows them in the inner circle, not only are we completely doomed, we also won't be able to become a part of outer circle, either."

"I'm aware, thank you very much," Hiro bit off. "Look, we have an explanation. Things got out of hand, we didn't immediately realize who they were and the next time you decide to attack a newcomer from Central, do it at night, why don't you?"

"I told you already—"

"Forget it, it's done now."

Lia, for what little of her Kazuto could see, looked ready to object. She had a pretty face and the long dark hair really made her green eyes stand out, but her face now was a dissatisfied pout that didn't look very fantastic. She didn't say anything, but it was clear she didn't want to just 'forget it'. She wasn't given a chance to do anything because the leader stood up.

"Taki, leave the kid here. I don't want the guards to think we're harassing a brat. They've probably already reported us anyway."

"Okay, boss."

Taki didn't put Kazuto down as much as he dropped him. Kazuto, not having expected it to be so quick, barely caught himself before falling flat on his face. He looked up at the group to see the leader and Taki walking away. Lia walked past him without sparing him a look and Shinkawa on purpose walked too close and carelessly swung his hand, pretty much pushing him out of the way.

The final person to walk past him was the second giant, clearly Taki's twin, though just looking at him suggested a significantly higher level of intelligence.

"Sorry for the trouble, kid. Hope they didn't rough you up too much."

"I'm fine," Kazuto said and was surprised to find that it was the truth. He was a bit shaken and stiff, but he wasn't hurt. He was more bothered by the fact that the five of them weren't nearly as evil as he'd initially imagined them to be. Mean, maybe, but… they were surprisingly more human.

However, the image of Harry bleeding in several places was still etched deep in his consciousness. To think that the same people who had done that to him had now let Kazuto go no worse for wear left him thinking that it was strangely unfair. He wanted to know why they'd done it. They had no reason, or at least, from what he'd picked up, it was some sort of a misunderstanding. But wasn't it a bit much for a misunderstanding?

He didn't look after Taki's twin as the man walked away. He wasn't going to ask for directions, either, because despite letting him go, they'd still hurt his friend. Could he really just let them get away with it?

Yes, he realized. Yes, he could.

Because there was nothing he could do about it. Yet.

None of that, however, changed the fact that he was alone in some backwater street without any clue how he was supposed to go back. He felt a rumble in his stomach.

Fantastic. Lost and hungry.

Kazuto sighed, looking up at the sky. Hopefully, he'd find somebody who could tell him which way to go, at least to the town plaza. He should be able to find his way then. Probably.


	5. Chapter 4: Lost and Found

Kazuto took a deep breath, holding his hand to his rumbling stomach. When he'd first started looking for bigger streets, he'd been convinced it would be an easy job. After all, those streets were long, wide and had tall buildings and tended to connect to the plazas. It wasn't just something he'd miss. At worst, he'd just ask somebody for directions.

The mix of heat, hunger and thirst got to him the moment he walked out on a tad bit wider road, where the sun was no longer hidden behind the buildings. They were still big and tall, but the space between them was wide enough for the sun to blind him.

The first sign that the street was not what he was looking for was the lack of people. The second one was the fact that it was incredibly short. The corner he crossroads he could see was close, but the street beyond it was several times shorter.

Kazuto reached a small store in the corner, a building that was two storeys high, though it looked to be barely the size of the shop that belonged to his classmate's family. It seemed like a good place to start.

Kazuto pushed the door, though when they were half-way open, a bell chimed. Kazuto found himself blinking in surprise, looking left and right before he located a bell hanging above his head. He relaxed, a long sigh escaping his lips.

The inside of the store reminded him of the local store back home, though the interior was twice as big spacious. There were two large shelves positioned behind the counter, filled with all sorts of different food ingredients and other trinkets, few which Kazuto had identified with no problem and others he had never before seen in his life. He was standing at the door, observing with wide eyes, before a sharp voice reminded him of the reason he was there in the first place.

"What do you want?"

Kazuto nearly jumped out of his skin. He hadn't seen anyone at the counter, though it turned out that the man who'd spoken had only just walked out of the back room. The most striking features about him were the beard and the round stomach with an apron over his clothes. His thick eyebrows were scrunched and his lips were pulled in a thin, inherently displeased line.

"Umm, actually, I was wondering—"

"We don't give out food for free. Out with you, kid."

Kazuto's eyes widened. "Eh? But—"

"Out, before I get a mop and chase you out with it!"

When Kazuto tried to get another word in, he did reach for something behind the counter. Deciding that asking somebody else might work better, Kazuto quickly walked out of the shop.

He was still dejectedly thinking about some of the better ways he could have acted when he walked past a group of children, two or three years younger than him, struggling to hide their giggles. Before he was out of earshot, a sentence reached him.

"Well, at least we know not to try."

Several giggles followed.

Kazuto sighed and let it be. It wasn't something worth being upset about, not really. He was still hungry, though. That didn't change. A part of him wished he'd remembered to take his money pouch before going downstairs. It was one of those things he'd heard from his mom a dozen of times, 'don't go anywhere without your belongings' and such, something he hadn't given much thought because he wouldn't just leave his things lying around. That sure wasn't the case now.

He was still lost in thought when he noticed an elder woman walking his way, hair lifted into a tight bun, dressed in a quality purple dress with bearing that suggested she was some kind of an aristocrat. It wasn't his preferred kind of people, but he had to at least try.

"Excuse me," he started.

The woman gave him one brief look before turning her head away sharply. "I will not buy you breakfast! Now off with you, off! Ask somebody at the street market!"

Kazuto sighed. Somewhere behind him, he could hear more giggling.

At least the hand gesture suggested that the market she'd mentioned was located somewhere on the right side. And markets were typically located near the plazas, or at least that was how it worked in Taft. Logically, going that way might help him find what he was looking for.

He'd taken the first turn, into a street about half wide as the previous one had been and already he could see that it gave way it cut through a more crowded one. He even got to glimpse a vehicle passing through. Though it had been too far to pick up on much of the details, it looked a lot like the black car belonging to Lord Gasupth Schuberg of Taft.

Kazuto grinned, increasing his pace. He had not noticed any real traffic the night before, but the fact that there were people driving cars had to mean that he was close to the town plaza and the town hall.

In his hurry, however, he failed to account for the fact he wasn't the only person walking down the street. He noticed at the last moment, though by then it was too late. His shoulder collided with the shoulder of a shorter and presumably younger girl, with shoulder-length chocolate hair. He'd barely felt it.

The girl wasn't so lucky. She gasped, a paper bag full of groceries falling out of her thin arms, several apples and a tomato rolling a few meters away.

"Aw, no," she said and bit her lip. She bent down immediately, picking the groceries that were in her reach.

Kazuto rushed after the apples and tomato that had rolled away. "I'm sorry," he said. "Are you all right?"

She nodded without looking at him and bit her lip. "I just… need another paper bag."

When Kazuto followed where she was looking, he saw that the paper bag had ripped. "Is there any place where you can get it? I'll help you carry them if you'd like."

She looked at him, wide blue eyes filled with uncertainty. "You would?"

"Well, it's my fault, no?"

"You really don't have to do that," she told him as she struggled to hold several potatoes in a single arm while the other reached to pick up the nearby cucumber and leek.

"It's fine," Kazuto reassured her. "I don't really mind. Though I could use some help, too."

She smiled shyly. "Oh, tell me. If I can help, I will."

"Do you know where Miss Rosa's Inn is?"

The girl tilted her head, before giving him a negative head shake. "I'm sorry. I'm familiar with the neighborhood, but I'm not from around here. I think my cousin would know, but…" she trailed off and quickly shook her head again. She wanted to say something more, but Kazuto was quick to interrupt.

"It's okay, it's okay. But if you know to tell me how to get to that big plaza, that would work, too."

The girl gave him another shy smile. "Oh, I can help with that, I think." She stacked most the vegetables in one hand, almost dropping them before finding some way to keep them balanced then offered the other.

Kazuto pilled the apples in his left hand and accepted the handshake.

"Oh, right, not to forget my manners, I'm Kirigaya Kazuto."

The girl nodded, though she seemed to be lost in thought. "So… Kazuto is your first name, right?"

He nodded.

"Right. Then, I'm Arabel Ronye. Thank you for offering to help me. Come on, this way."

Kazuto sighed, resisting the urge to repeat that it was his fault. He followed when she turned to lead him to the nearest street vendor. He was going to get the instructions he needed so the least he could do was help her with that. Hopefully, his stomach could take being in the proximity of the food he was so deprived of, at least for a little bit longer.

* * *

The inn room was a rather small space, barely six meters long and four wide, its walls completely dull and bare. A window between the two beds was on the sunlit side of the street and was wide open, allowing the summer heat to enter without constraints. The room was occupied with two beds, a nightstand positioned between them and a single wardrobe, half the size of the one Klein had at home. It was not a room equipped to hold four people, let alone eight.

The lack of space was the only thing that kept Klein from pacing up and down the room in nervousness, so instead he tapped his fingers against the wooden doorframe.

Harry lay on the bed on the right side, occasionally moaning or hissing whenever the doctor looking over him, a fine looking young woman with a single long dirty blonde braid falling down her back, pressed the muscles of his arm. Already she'd dealt with minor but numerous cuts over his arms, back and shoulders and shortly before she'd stared examining his arm, she'd determined that despite the headache, he most probably did not sustain any serious head injuries. Though, taking everything in account, she had given him the warning that getting some rest is going to be necessary.

His arm, however, seemed to be a different matter.

It hadn't been noticeable at first, or maybe just Klein hadn't been paying enough attention, he had only noticed the soft bruising before the doctor had asked of Harry to take his shirt off. When he'd tried to, though, the pain in his arm and shoulder stopped him from moving the limb more than a few centimeters and the doctor, who had introduced herself as Kawasawa Aiko, quickly asked of others to cut it off. Klein had been convinced that she'd been overreacting, though Kunimittz had not for a moment hesitated to comply.

Only once the sleeve had been gone did the full extent of the injury show.

The swelling and bruising noticeable at the inner side of the elbow, while scary looking, was nothing compared to the swelling of the shoulder. Klein had watched with wide eyes as the doctor tenderly pressed her fingers to the swelling with a delicate frown on her face.

"I'd advise against moving it at all," she said. "If one of the young men could get me some ice, I would be grateful."

Klein, Kunimittz and Dale, the only ones without any injuries, exchanged a look. But before either of them could say or make a move, a quiet voice came from the back of the room.

"I'll go."

Klein glanced at the other side where the single boy sat at the very edge of the bed, face pained.

"No," Klein said, not allowing anyone else to get a word in. It earned him a strange look from Kunimittz and a grateful one from Issin.

"But—"

Klein shook his head. "Just sit tight, Eugeo." He gave Kunimittz a significant look and the other man finally seemed to catch on what exactly had Klein so worried.

"Yeah," he said. "It's okay, I'll go. It'll be easier to find my way around, too."

"And I'll go with him," Dale chimed in.

Eugeo nodded and lowered his head. Despite the agreement, he seemed to be completely crestfallen.

Klein looked away, choosing to focus on Harry instead. For the fact that he understood exactly how he was feeling, one thing he would not allow was for another person to get hurt, not today. Eugeo was perhaps not aware of it himself, but he was an ideal target for groups like the one they'd confronted earlier, though Klein had only learned about it after Dale told him exactly what the woman had told him and the guards.

Namely, she had been targeted solely because she'd recent moved in from Aisc, a town in Central region. She had accused the attackers to be members of the rebel groups, something Klein knew could be right on mark, and had demanded of authorities to take immediate action with abysmal results.

Eugeo was a boy with flaxen hair, fair skin and light green eyes, a combination not often seen in southern parts of Northern Limits, if ever. A combination like that could sometimes be found further north, yes, but it was much, much more frequent for light haired people to have origins from Central or Western Fields. He also didn't look particularly strong and was far from being at ease with his surroundings—another thing that would make him a perfect target.

After what had happened with Kazuto, Klein honestly did not want to risk it. The guards were supposed to be looking for him, though after they had heard exactly what had transpired, they seemed significantly less interested in doing their job thoroughly. They shared the local opinion on people of Central and anyone who went against them was perhaps not their friend, but they came close enough. Klein could tolerate that way of thinking up to a certain point, but there was a limit of how much he would let it go.

The red haired merchant fought the urge to go out and look for Kazuto himself, at least for now. He wasn't taking a single step out of the room until he was sure that not one of his friends suffered from any serious injuries.

"All right, I already said my piece, but when I ask of you not to move around too much, I mean it. It will probably take around a week or two for it to heal completely. It's a rather serious strain. Does it hurt when you're not moving it?"

"Not much," Harry replied.

"That's good, it means it's not as scary as it looks. Apply ice whenever you can, but not for too long. And if you necessarily have to move around, make sure to immobilize it, is that clear?"

Harry gave a nod. The doctor nodded back before turning to look at Klein. "All right, who's next?"

Klein gestured toward Dynamm, sitting on the other bed, between Issin and Eugeo, traces of dried blood still visible under his nose. Eugeo boy immediately moved to stand by the wall, making space for the doctor as she approached to examine him.

The younger boy looked up in surprise when Klein patted his head and Klein gave him a tight lipped smile.

"They'll be fine," he said without looking at him. "Kazuto is going to be fine, too."

"Yeah," the boy agreed without enthusiasm.

Klein sighed. For the next ten minutes, they stood in silence while Doctor Kawasawa preformed her examination, though she looked rather dissatisfied.

"Well, it's not that bad," she said, lips pursed. "Your nose is not broken, so that's good, but if it starts swelling, you might want to get some ice as well. Other injuries look superficial to me, but if the pain persists for longer, I'd advise you to forego a doctor and head to a healer immediately. Clear?"

Dynamm nodded.

"Good. Next?"

"I'm fine," Issin said immediately. "Just a few scrapes and bruises, that's all."

"You were practically limping," Klein reminded him.

"For less than two minutes. I'm fine now." He stood up straight and walked several circles across the tiny room before coming to a stop right in front of Klein. "See? Now, let's go."

Klein sighed. He didn't particularly want to say no.

It turned out he wouldn't have gotten a chance anyway, because that was when the room door swung open. There, completely out of breath, was Dale. Because of his body mass, rarely, if ever, had Klein seen him stay out of breath, let alone run.

"I… saw…"

"What?" Issin demanded immediately. "What's going on?"

"The… woman… Kunimittz… following…"

"Where?" Klein demanded.

"Near the… park… at the crossroads…"

There were only two nearby parks in Urbus that Klein knew, only one of them anywhere close to their inn. He nodded. "And Kazuto?"

"Not with… her. Kunimittz said… he had a plan."

"All right, let's go. Dynamm, what—?"

He was standing up, a two of his fingers finding their way to his moustache—a move he always subconsciously made whenever he was going to do something decidedly reckless.

"Don't even try to stop me," he said.

Klein sighed. "Fine. Eugeo, can I ask of you to stay here and watch out for Harry?"

"Eh? But I—" He abruptly cut off the sentence and shook his head. Looking down into the ground, he said, "… okay."

Klein's eyes for a moment met with Issin's. The latter man frowned and turned back to the boy. "You wanted to say something, didn't you?"

"No, no. It's… okay. I just realized I can't really help you much." Eugeo smiled.

It was the sad truth, Klein realized, or at least Eugeo thought that way. Klein was sure that he could find a way to help them out a lot if necessary. But there was also the fact that he didn't want to risk it, not now. He was just waiting for Issin to oppose him on that point, explain it that treating him like a kid at this point was stupid. But the opposition never came.

"We'll be fast," was all Issin said.

Klein found himself nodding in agreement. "Come on," he said.

"I'm sorry about the ice, Harry," Dale said.

Harry waved with his healthy arm. "Just don't stall it."

Klein gave him the thumbs up before striding out of the room, the others following quickly. Whatever Kunimittz's plan with following the girl was, it had better be good.

* * *

Kunimittz was typically not an easy person to get upset. He was not an easy person to rile up or annoy. In fact, he was usually on the annoying side, tending to cause headaches to responsible people. It wasn't to say that he was irresponsible, exactly, but his view on responsibility greatly differed from other people.

Case in point, his current situation. The moment Dale had identified the dark haired girl as the one who'd been part of the attacking group, Kunimittz had come up with a pretty good idea how he was going to solve the problem. It was a simple solution, really. So he sent Dale to let the others know while he focused on finding the rest of the group and, even more importantly, Kazuto.

And what he needed in order to achieve that was to let the girl lead him to the rest of them. The way he was going to achieve that, of course, wasn't going to be nearly as simple.

Kunimittz had never particularly liked his real name and even less he'd liked his appearance: thin arms, thin legs, always skinny no matter how much he ate—a perfect target for bullies. It had taken him nearly seven months in Aincrad to piece together exactly what his affinity could do and he had to admit that he had not been overly surprised when it turned out to be the illusionistic type. His illusions worked on small areas only and could serve as a reasonably good concealment for as long as necessary.

In this case, it worked as well as he could have possibly hoped.

The girl had spotted both him and Dale before he'd sent him off. The moment she'd looked away, he'd used the opportunity to hide. Complete and utter invisibility for longer than a few minutes was beyond him, however. It demanded focus he had succeeded once only and, even more than that, it demanded an eye for details. But most of all, it asked for a clear image in his mind, something he couldn't create while trying to keep track of a reasonably paranoid girl.

For that reason, disguises worked perfectly.

A simple change of hairstyle to resemble Dale's curly hair, a bit of a touch to his shirt's design and color and he was done. It wasn't hard to maintain and it did not waste any time at all. The best thing of all, he could change it with a single thought the moment she figured him out.

For all her cautiousness, she had no idea how close he was.

She'd looked at him a couple of times before speeding up, but she had not recognized him. Well, unless if she'd already figured him out and was leading him into a trap, but Kunimittz rather disliked thinking of that possibility.

When she turned into one of the narrowest streets in the town, he didn't follow. He'd seen her stop walking and backtracked, deciding for different approach. It took a few seconds to get a clear image of his surroundings, replicate it in his head and then, hopefully, remove his presence from her eyes completely. It would really only work so long as he was at least ten meters away from her and completely focused. Otherwise, she would notice something amiss.

When he entered the street, he was relieved to notice she was still there, talking to somebody in hushed voices.

He approached the closest he could, listening to the quiet conversation.

"—following me. I really hope you have some kind of a plan. I'd say it's really bad."

"Making enemies wasn't the first thing on our to-do list today, was it?" the man replied, rubbing his forehead. "Look, at least the guards don't know it's us, so that's good. I'm more worried about those rumors being true than anything else, really."

"What rumors?"

"About Asahina. They said he's in town."

"I—"

"Boss!"

The sudden shout coming from somewhere right behind him made Kunimittz jump out of his skin.

It surprised the other two just as much, because they spun in a sharp motion. But then their eyes came to rest on Kunimittz and widened. He realized a moment later that his illusion must've disappeared the moment he'd lost focus.

"Crap."

A strong blast of wind sent him flying good two meters before he fell on his back, all the air forced out of his lungs.

"W-wha—! He just appeared there, boss! Out of nowhere!"

"Lia!"

"On it!"

She was too late, however. By the time she made her move, Kunimittz was already gone from her sight.

"How did he even...? No, never mind." The girl bit her lip then whipped her hand out, sending yet another strong gust of wind around. Unbeknownst to her, it came straight at Kunimittz. It would have sent him flying again had he not made a quick retreat to the nearest wall, but maintaining the so called invisibility was almost useless under these conditions.

The moment the wind stopped, all he'd have to rely on would be his sword. Fortunately, he was more than skillful enough to take on three of them.

"Shinkawa, what's going on?" the leader asked.

"Oh, yeah, right." The young man nodded. "Taki is cornered by the Fuurinkazan."

_"What?"_

"They saw us while we were talking to Izaya. I got away before they cornered Taki, but I saw it."

The woman, Lia, looked at the leader in panic. "Then what about the one following me?"

"If he can turn invisible, he's probably gone by now. Let's go. We can't afford to attract the attention of the guards."

He broke into a run, the other two quickly following after him. Kunimittz let out a relieved sigh and the feeble illusion dissipated away completely. He stood up straight, dusting off the back of his shorts.

_Whoever that chick is, she's good. _

He hadn't initially believed that one girl had immobilized over half of his friends, but having felt it on his own skin, he couldn't deny she was strong. She had the element of surprise on her side and no matter what they did, they couldn't possibly resist. The only way they could deal with her would be a sneak attack and the only one who could perform in with a high success chance was Kunimittz.

But all that would be for naught if anyone got caught by the guards. They'd already received a warning about causing unrest on the streets. Another offense and they'd be forced to abandon the place.

That only meant that he didn't have time to waste.

Kunimittz flexed his shoulders before breaking into a run. They had better not do anything reckless, Issin and Klein. Especially Klein.

* * *

Klein released a long suffering sigh.

"So you don't know where he is anymore?" he asked the giant man.

The giant tilted his head. "Home?"

"Nope. Definitely not there."

"… Playground?"

"Doubt it."

The giant frowned in thought.

"Park?"

"You mean the other one?"

A quick nod.

"Even less likely," Issin snorted.

The giant made a grimace that might have looked like a sad face on a bear. "Lost?"

Klein sighed. "Yeah. Lost. I'm betting that's right it."

"Aww…"

The real mystery here, Klein thought, was how the giant was succeeding in looking like an oversized kid who'd lost his favorite toy. When he'd first saw him, Klein had doubted that asking a simple question would have been a solution to half his problems. He'd tried, anyway, because resorting to violence at this point was the last viable option. He was, thus, honestly surprised when the giant turned out to be rather cooperative.

"Any luck?" Dynamm asked as he came to stand between him and Issin.

Klein shook his head. "Well, we know he's fine. Lost somewhere in the town, but that's much better than being beaten up. Now the only thing we have to do is find him."

"That isn't nearly simple as you just made it sound."

"Of course it isn't."

They both sighed. That was when the shout from Issin came.

"Klein!"

"Yeah?"

"We've got company."

Klein made a half turn, taking the notice of the three people walking their way. The side of the park where they were was a tiny and not a particularly popular corner. It served as a shortcut to the big plaza, but Klein was certain that nobody would bother using it the moment they saw the large group of people there, especially since it was evident they weren't exactly on friendly terms.

"Looks like your friends are coming," he told the giant.

"So fight now?" The sad puppy look was gone in an instant, as if he'd simply taken a mask off, his expression making a complete turn for the worse.

"Hopefully not." Klein's eyes narrowed at the approaching personas. "But I don't think they'd agree with me."

His eyes met with the eyes of the person he'd long since identified as the leader. It was a stubborn clash of wills as they faced off with their eyes and the noble was the first to crack.

"Move away from him," the man ordered.

He had to be at least a year or two up on Klein's twenty-two years of life, if not more. His steps were calm, collected and his eyes determined. Protective over his friends, Klein liked that.

"We're not holding him hostage, if that's what you're worried about," he said.

"I don't care. Just move."

Klein debated on it for a moment, before shaking his head in clear refusal.

"Who are you?" he asked instead.

"I have no reason to tell you anything. Now move away from him."

"I'm not attacking," Klein said. The man glanced towards his hip where his katana was sheathed, but getting it out would be easy enough. Klein was hoping it would not have to come to that.

The leader did not like his answer. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to argue, but then a smirk appeared on his face.

"Taki, come over here," he said.

"Yes, boss."

Issin and Dale both tensed, but Klein shook his head. There was no point in drawing weapons.

"Who are you?" he repeated.

The leader narrowed his eyes. "It's none of your business. What I'd like to know is what is the like of Fuurinkazan doing here, defending _them_?"

Klein didn't answer that question. He didn't have to.

"And I'm afraid that is none of your business."

Klein's head wasn't the only one that made a sharp turn on the left at the presence of a voice that wasn't supposed to be there.

He recognized the voice, of course. He recognized the man who'd spoken, the one with messy, dark shoulder-length hair and strong jaw, the one with sharp eyes and an even sharper tongue, if he bothered to speak at all. The white shirt that he was wearing fit him perfectly and went well with the beige shorts, it all made him look like a relaxed young man taking a stroll in the morning. There was nothing that would make him stand out as a dangerous individual, not a single weapon, plain or hidden.

Anybody who knew Asahina Daimon also knew that he didn't need it.

The man was standing in the shade of a tree as if he'd been standing there all along, leaned against its trunk, legs crossed. He did not particularly emit any imposing presence, but the atmosphere was tense. His eyes met with Klein's before moving until they met with the Urbus minor royal as well.

"You see, I was really hoping for a good six hour long sleep at least once this month," he said easily. "I've been on my feet a lot more than not. Then Eris and Akira left me alone, finally. It seemed like a perfect chance. But no, of course not. It was too much to hope for, wasn't it?"

Klein didn't say a word despite the open invitation. If he knew something it was that one should never speak until Asahina is finished. Usually, that went for Asahina Eris, for the girl could be a real devil when she wanted to, but Klein did not wish to risk it with Daimon. The circles under his eyes were, if nothing else, a damning proof that he was telling the truth.

"I'm really disappointed, Klein," he said, though there was a distinct lack of emotion right there. "I know you guys. I know you don't get in trouble. Well, normally you don't. What some friends from the watch told me seems to suggest treason on your part, not that I can blame you, circumstances and blah blah blah. Now, you, Asakura, on the other hand..."

The other man tensed. It told Klein everything he had wanted to know in the first place.

The Asakura family wasn't overly high standing, at least not according to what he knew. They had money, yes, but they couldn't compare to the likes of the lording families like Ishikawa and Arabel. What they did have going was the faithful loyalty to the previous monarchy and complete and utter refusal of the current regime. No wonder they'd heard about his guild, then.

"Are you an idiot?" Daimon demanded. His focus on was Asakura Hiro only. "What were you _thinking,_ attacking somebody in broad daylight? Mind you, I don't care if you go around bullying people all you like, you're not my people. I don't have any reason to care. But broad daylight? Middle of a busy street? Yeah, beyond stupid."

"We had a reason—"

"Shut up. I don't care about your reasons. Your actions nearly exposed me. I don't have all the guards right under my belt, you know? If you ever do want to join the outer circle, you're going to have to make up for it good time."

"I… understand."

"Good. Now, your little act of stupidity turned out not be so useless. It helped me find the spy from Grandum I've been looking for and dispatch her before she got to find out anything compromising. You also saved Klein's group from being uncovered by drawing attention to yourselves instead, so I guess you have that going for you."

Asakura blinked. "Uh… thanks?"

"Not quite. But if you're sure on your course of action, you're expected to show up at the Cross Radeon in Algade on the twenty-first of August at noon. That's… well, twenty days from now."

Asakura nodded.

"I don't believe this," Issin breathed out. Then, louder, "Daimon, you can't be serious."

"I am. Klein?"

"Yes?"

"I take it you won't make it in time?"

Klein swallowed and shook his head. "We will. One day to reach Cremen, one day to stay there and another to Algade. It's more than enough."

"I see. Good enough. Well, I'm off, then. Still got work to do. Better hope not to see me anytime soon." He turned then, walking off into the park without so much as a hand wave. Two different groups stood in silence for a while, until Dynamm decided to break it.

"That was his way of saying we were pathetic, wasn't it?"

Klein sighed, rubbing his forehead. "No. That was his way of saying that he is sick of everything and that the next time we see him, he'll probably be taking it out on us."

"Consolable, really," Issin snorted.

"Klein," Dale called.

Klein hummed in response as he watched Asakura gesture at his friends to follow him. Their eyes met for another moment and Klein got a strange feeling that, for whatever reason, Asakura Hiro did not like him in the slightest.

"Klein?" Dale called again.

"What?"

"Klein!" Issin snapped.

Klein turned, partially relieved it was all over, partially irritated with the way things had gone down, though both familiar feelings fled when his eyes locked on the stature of a scarily familiar boy with jet black hair.

"Crap," he said.

With a corner of his eye, he saw Issin nodding.

Kirigaya Kazuto, on the other hand, only tilted his head. Next to him was a slightly shorter girl, dressed in a lavender sundress, holding a dull brown paper bag filled with vegetables to her chest.

Kazuto's eyes met with Klein's before drifting back to the girl beside him. He scratched his cheek, this time determinedly looking at something behind him.

"Umm… hi, guys?"


	6. Chapter 5: Stages of Trust

**Author's Note: **Well, this took a long time. Don't kill me, please! I had some pretty... uh... good? reasons. It pretty much boils down to two rewrites of the first scene and four of the last two. Anyway, on to the story.

* * *

"Pffft! You're not fair, it was a fine book," Ronye said with a huff.

Kazuto was slowly losing the will to argue back. "It was boring," he said halfheartedly, a fact Ronye did not miss upon.

"No, it was not!" she argued. "Especially at the end, when Tonno discovered that he could use not one, not two, but three affinities! Isn't it amazing?"

Kazuto let out a sigh. "It didn't make any sense. Something like that is impossible."

"It was amazing! I loved it!"

Kazuto sighed. Really, this argument was not going anywhere. "Okay," he decided. "You liked it, I didn't. There's really no point in arguing about it."

"But it was interesting." Ronye pouted and, purely because he very much felt like he should do something to deflate the argument, Kazuto turned his head the other way. At this rate, he might just agree with her just to make her stop gushing about the standard sixth year curriculum book.

"Anyway, about that…" He trailed off as his eyes landed on the park, or rather, the back of the person standing not too far off. It seemed familiar, somehow.

"Hey, it's not that way," Ronye warned him, but Kazuto shook his head. He approached and, with a sigh, he heard the girl following. The conversation among the people he'd noticed was still ongoing and they didn't seem to register the pair.

"…understand."

"Not quite. But if you're sure on your course of action, you're expected to show up at the Cross Radeon in Algade on the twenty-first of August at noon. That's… well, twenty days from now."

"I don't believe this. Daimon, you can't be serious."

Kazuto froze. The voice was unmistakably Issin's and now that he was closer, he could confirm that the other people present were also Fuurinkazan members, but what about the others?

He didn't know what to do. Was he supposed to get out and greet them immediately? Or wait until the rest of them are gone? He recognize two of them, the ones responsible for him ending up on the other side of the town, but what were they doing?

Indecision ate at him. Act or not?

When Ronye decided to try and peek over his shoulder, he made his decision.

He took several steps back, pulling her along.

"What?" she asked.

"It's nothing, don't worry."

It wasn't a very satisfying response, he knew, but for now, that was all he had. He could still hear the conversation, but quietly. Only after everybody but Fuurinkazan was gone did he dare to come any closer. Not a moment later, he realized he was no longer hidden in the trees. That was when his eyes met with Dale's and, after a few moments, he felt the eyes of all four members present.

Listening in on people wasn't one of the ways Kazuto preferred his day to go. He was cross between pretending that he hadn't really heard anything, something that would normally be his default reaction, but the second notion, the one pushing him to ask exactly what was going on was much stronger. Ronye's voice, however, quickly reminded him that this was neither time nor place for such conversations.

"Why are they looking at us like that?" she whispered, going so far as to grab the edge of his sleeve.

The moment she saw Kazuto glance at it, she let go, giving him an apologetic smile.

"Eh… it's nothing," Kazuto replied. "Anyway, thanks for your help. I'll be fine from here on."

His companion and guide through Urbus nodded, but she did not seem to take the cue to leave. "They look kind of scary."

Kazuto could see why she'd think that. Issin had the face that seemed to scream 'prankster', though his personality was nothing like it. Dale was big in every sense of the word, but not particularly intimidating. Dynamm's nose looked somewhat stranger than usual and the mustache did make him look kind of sneaky and Klein, for all his normally friendly and outgoing nature, still looked scary with a katana on his hip.

"Don't worry, they're my friends."

"Hmph…" Ronye nodded, but didn't make any other move.

Kazuto looked over at Klein again, the older man seemingly eager to say something, but this time, Kazuto was pretty sure it would be better if he beat him to it. When he spoke, however, he addressed Ronye. "You should probably head home now. Your parents will get worried."

"Grandparents. I'm just visiting for the summer," she corrected him. Then her eyes widened. "Oh, no! I completely forgot! I'm sorry, I have to go! Grandmother is going to get so worried! I never take longer than fifteen minutes. I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Bye!"

In a flurry, she spun and began running, only to suddenly stop and turn back.

"It was nice to meet you!" she said with a quick bow. "Thanks for your help!" Then she turned and sprinted away.

_Really now, I should be the one saying thanks. _He hesitantly looked back to the Fuurinkazan.

Issin was first to break the tense silence. "Are you alright? Not hurt anywhere?"

It was a good question for a start, Kazuto had to admit, and very easy to answer.

"I'm fine. Actually…" Now was the time. He could ask the question—about who the people from previous night were and just what this meeting in Algade was supposed to be. He'd been curious about it from the start, but now was the best chance to address it. What little he'd heard before the others had departed implied a lot of dangerous things that just mentioning them would have probably earned him a mouthwash from some of his old teachers.

But those teachers weren't here now. And he wasn't just a kid anymore, either. Or at least, he didn't feel that way.

"What? Something the matter?" Issin asked.

"No, no… Just…" Kazuto took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Here goes nothing. "Were those people now members of the rebel factions? Are they trying to force you to work with them? I… remember when mom talked to the neighbor, he said that the rebels are going far enough to threaten people to work for them. Is that what…" he trailed off, the scene before his eyes coming to a complete standstill.

For longer than just a few seconds, his eyes went from one adult to another. Dynamm had taken the time to make a hundred and eighty degree turn and not even look at Kazuto. Dale had a goofy smile on his face. Issin just seemed to sigh. Finally, a verbal response came in form a chuckle.

"That's what you're worrying about?" Klein asked, his hand coming to rest on top of Kazuto's head. "I wish it were that interesting. Sadly, it's just one old business deal, no more, no less."

"With the rebels?"

"Well, they are a bit shady, I suppose, but I wouldn't go that far," Issin said. "Anyway, I think we should get going. Others should be sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for the news now."

Kazuto nodded in agreement. However, he didn't fail to notice the way all four seemed to be walking a little straighter.

* * *

There had been a few times in Kazuto's life when he thought that things could not possibly get any worse.

One of those times had been after he'd gotten out of the hospital and had to build up the stamina he'd lost over time. The first week had been completely horrendous, he had only barely been able to stay awake in classes and the fact that he had two months worth of curriculum to catch up to had really only made things worse, leaving him with only a tad bit of free time to rest and muscle pains he never wished to experience again.

The time they'd spent travelling to Cremen had to be ten times worse.

The sheer awkwardness of his reuniting with Fuurinkazan had really only been the start. He'd felt bad about sending Ronye home without so much as a proper thanks. She'd helped him out immensely and she hadn't deserved to be brushed off like that. What made things worse was that Kazuto was pretty sure he wasn't going to get a chance to make it up to her. At least she hadn't seemed like she'd caught onto the implications of the conversation they'd overheard, so he liked to think it was worth it.

The decision to head to Cremen almost immediately after they'd finished lunch had been Kunimittz's idea.

"Klein, I think we should get on the road as fast as possible," he'd said. "We're gonna have trouble meeting the deadline anyway, but wasting more time here is not going to help us any. We'll just take it slower than we usually do."

And that had been it. A wordless agreement, several gestures and Kazuto had been running to pack his things with no idea what was going on and why they were in such an apparent rush. He hadn't even had the chance to ask if Harry and Dynamm were fine, though judging by the looks on their faces after they heard there was going to be no rest, they probably weren't.

They'd spent the rest of the day riding, with only brief pauses to eat and rest every two hours or whenever they came across a smaller village. Kazuto had been surprised to learn that there were at least a dozen more miniature villages on their way to Cremen, though what he'd heard from Kunimittz suggested that the path they were following was going to be at least forty kilometers longer than the one they had initially intended to take.

And that had been another problem. Not the distance itself, but the fact that the ongoing conversations had felt fabricated. Klein had almost never really bothered to talk unless if it had been a poor attempt to brighten the atmosphere. Whenever Harry had opened his mouth, it had been to ask for some water or rest. The only conversation that had sounded vaguely natural had been the one going on between Eugeo and Kunimittz—a long talk about possible roads to Algade and the Algade-Urbus railways still in construction, but even that had become awkward after they had picked up on the generally bad mood of their companions.

Kazuto had taken to riding with Issin after several failed attempts of conversation between him and Klein. He'd wanted explanations, about the abrupt travel, about who those people were, he'd wanted them badly. It had seemed so obvious-normal people didn't go around carrying weapons and that woman had possessed one, with no armor to speak of. Kazuto had doubted the soldiers were allowed to do that, but whether the weapon was one of the ones issued to the soldiers was another thing he hadn't known. Asking Eugeo would have been the easiest thing to do, considering his interest in all things history-related, but he'd never quite gotten the chance.

They hadn't slowed down, not even during the night, only taking an hour long break when the first signs of morning had appeared on the far east. By that point, Kazuto had been practically dead on his feet. He'd barely been able to stand on the hard ground. In the end, he hadn't even bothered eating, preferring to lady under the closest tree and sleep until somebody had woken him up.

After that, everything had been lost in a haze. He remembered drinking icy cold water from a stream of some kind, which might have really happened, and he remembered watching a giant fire consuming everything in its way, which most certainly hadn't.

One thing he knew for sure was that they reached the town Cremen at nightfall on the second day of the eighth month, a fact he remembered solely because it had been the first time in his life that he'd heard somebody mentioning August—the name used to refer to the eighth month in a year. He clearly remembered asking about it later, but the answer must have been kind of confusing for his exhausted mind because he couldn't seem to recall it now.

He also remembered hearing the sentence 'Go get some sleep'. He had been so happy that he'd nearly fainted the moment he'd heard it.

There had also been a girl there, at some point. He wasn't sure what she was doing there, but he was pretty certain that she'd been the one to show him which room to go to. He hadn't even bothered to take his clothes off. Instead, he'd just dived under the covers and lost himself in blissful nothingness.

And that was why hearing the voice telling him to get up now was something he so eagerly ignored.

"Come on, we don't have time for this."

Kazuto mumbled that he didn't care and covered his head with his pillow.

"What? No, wait, never mind. You leave me no choice, then."

The following few moments of silence helped the young swordsman go back to his dream—a dream in which a woman he didn't recognize, though she looked familiar in a way he couldn't explain, kept shaking her head as if he'd done something to make her sad. He couldn't remember what.

It was interrupted a moment later when his pillow was forcefully stolen away and something cold and wet splashed in his face.

If he hadn't been awake before, he sure was now.

"Ughu… not fair…"

He sat straight, allowing the wetness to trickle down to his neck, but his eyelids still felt heavy. He brushed the water away and blinked a few times, adjusting to the bright sunlight in the small room.

"That's cruel. Too cruel," he said before a long yawn escaped his lips.

"Sorry. But at least it worked," Eugeo stated and put the glass on the wooden drawer beside the bed. "Unlike all my previous efforts."

"Couldn't you have let me sleep a little bit longer?"

"No. The offices are open until noon and it's eleven o'clock now. You can sleep after we're done with the pass cards. Kunimittz said we have time to rest until tomorrow morning."

Kazuto let out another long yawn.

"Fine," he said. Then he flexed his stiff shoulders and barely held back a groan from the pain in his back and rear as he stood up. "Ugh. Next time I'll just go by foot," he decided.

Eugeo gave a tired sigh. "I can see why you'd think that."

"You don't look too tired," Kazuto remarked, though a moment later he noticed otherwise. His friend's skin was a shade paler than usual and there were bags under his eyes, as though he hadn't slept for days, even though the riding had lasted a little over thirty hours. He didn't think he himself looked much better, though.

Eugeo shrugged. "It wasn't really that scary."

"EH? Come again?"

"I've had worse while helping father at the farm," the other boy explained. "Come on," he added. "We have to get those passes. You can rest later."

Kazuto sighed. It was not a battle he was going to win. He began to get up, though only then he noticed he was still wearing the clothes he'd worn for the trip rather than a real pajamas. Whoops.

"You go on," he said. "I'll catch up to you in a minute, just gotta change first."

Eugeo, who was looking for something in his giant backpack, mumbled affirmatively. He picked up a pouch then and walked out. Kazuto was almost completely sure he'd also heard an exasperated sigh.

He glanced towards the stuffed, over-sized backpack resting by his bed, wondering if he had been the one to carry it there. He'd also have to ask somebody about washing their clothes. At this rate, he'd have nothing to wear in a few days.

* * *

"Klein-san, do we have to personally take the passes?" Eugeo asked. He slowed down, reluctantly looking over at the bushes at the side.

"Eh? What? No-no. We just need to give them any kind of identification document and that's it. That's why there are just four of us going. No need to have the others come along."

Eugeo glanced towards them-Klein, Issin and Kazuto-before looking back towards the bushes. If he squinted, he could briefly see a water surface in the distance. Ahead of them, the dirt road they were following was splitting in two directions. The wider one lead towards the houses that could be seen a bit further away, behind the trees and bushes, while the other one curved and disappeared behind another set of bush. It went up the small hill and Eugeo had a pretty good idea what he would be able to find there.

"You could have let me sleep then," Kazuto grumbled.

"Wouldn't you have complained about it if I'd left you behind?" Klein shot back with a grin.

Kazuto sighed. "Probably, yeah," he admitted.

"There you go," Klein said triumphantly.

They were at the split now, Klein leading them down the dirt road leading directly to the more urban area. Eugeo slowed down even more, until finally, he stopped walking completely. Everyone else pulled to a stop merely moments later.

"Would it be a problem if I didn't go, then?" he asked, not looking at any of their faces. He looked at the sketchbook in his hand, the place where he put all his important documents for safekeeping. It wasn't a proper fascicle, but the covers were tough and that was what really counted. "I'll give you the papers and everything, but…" he trailed off, uncertain how exactly to word it.

"You want to go back to the hotel?" Klein asked.

The younger boy shook his head. "No, that's not it. I just saw something out the window and I'd like to see if I can get closer."

"What is it? We can always visit later, it's not a problem."

Eugeo bit his lip. There was no way he could explain this, not in a satisfying way. Klein seemed to catch onto that, however.

"I can't leave you on your own," he said.

Eugeo bowed his head. It had been a long shot, anyway.

"Well, I could stay behind with him," Issin offered. "It's not a problem. We'll just meet up with you for lunch."

Klein opened his mouth, then promptly closed them. He gave a quick nod.

"Yeah, I guess that works. Eugeo?"

Eugeo stiffened. "Uh… I'm… fine with that, I guess," he mumbled out, hoping he wasn't just a tad bit too obvious. There was cold sweat rolling down the back of his neck, but he took a deep breath and calmed down. There wasn't any reason to worry, anyway.

He shared a look with Kazuto and smiled, hoping it would convey his message. _I'll tell you later. _It shouldn't be that hard to understand.

"Fine, then," Klein decided. "We'll meet you at the hotel for lunch, then."

Eugeo nodded, taking the documents out of his improvised fascicle and passing them to Klein. He then sighed and headed down the narrower path, leading up the hill. It wasn't particularly high one, barely being higher than a typical two storey building, nor was it particularly steep. The trees and bushes around were preventing him from seeing what was beyond the road, but Eugeo was sure he was taking the right path. There was nowhere else it could go.

Issin, thankfully, didn't ask anything yet, preferring to observe their surroundings instead. There was a look of dawning comprehension on his face, however, when they reached a small clearing at the top.

There was a smile on Eugeo's face, too, because his guess had been correct. There were only few trees at top of the hill while the other side was covered in grass only. There was a single monument on the hill, built more like a miniature shrine than a monument, with numbers engraved on it. What stretched beyond the hill, however, was what really mattered.

The Hanase river, known as the longest and widest river in the Northern Fields region, stretched before him, its surface sparkling in the sun. The color was different from the ocean. It was still blue, though it had a tinge of green to it, yet it was no less beautiful. Buildings of different shapes and sizes surrounded it from both sides, starting with one-storey homes few and far in between, until it reached the curve where the size of the buildings increased and the designs varied, each grander and more magnificent the closer it got to the town center. There, a single tall building stood, its color pure white.

Eugeo prided himself on his knowledge about history. Although it was much better than the sketches in the history books had indicated, the Church of Alleia was relatively easy to recognize, with its tall walls and several arched roofs. The white tower, however, was the iconic symbol of the town and the entire surrounding area. Significantly taller than any other building in surroundings, it had an enormous bronze bell that could be heard even in the nearby villages. It was the oldest building in Cremen, the only one that had survived Lord Hidesao's rebellion that had razed the city, two hundred and seventy three years ago.

Eugeo looked beyond it, his eyes taking in the scenery around and behind it.

There were two bridges built over the river. The closer one to Eugeo was the arch bridge made of stone, built over the narrowest part of the river, standing rather tall. It connected what seemed to be the most populated areas, but from afar, it was difficult to tell whether there were any real vehicles on it no matter how hard he squinted.

The other bridge was even further away, but the construction was obviously different. It seemed like most of it had been made of iron rather than stone and it rose in a high arc. It was not something Eugeo had seen ever before.

He gave another glance to the sketchbook in his hand and ran over to the monument. He sat down on the ground, leaning against it and dug into his pouch until he found the graphite pencil he'd brought along. It was an old one and it wasn't going to last him for a long while, but for now, it was all he had.

"You should've mentioned that you just wanted to draw," Issin remarked, the look on his face thankfully neutral.

Eugeo shook his head. "It's a present," he explained. "My sister, Mimi, is turning seven today. She made me promise I'll get her a picture of where I've been. I didn't get a chance in Urbus, but now seemed like a good time."

"That's… well, I expected a lot of things. Not this, though. Definitely not this."

"I'm not really that good. But if I do the shadings right, it should work out. It might take a while, though. I'm sorry."

Issin shook his head. "No, no, it's not a problem. Don't worry about it." He grinned. "I get a perfect chance to take a nap, too. Just don't forget to wake me up. We shouldn't be late for lunch."

"Thanks," Eugeo said. He glanced back towards the town before focusing again on the blank page in his sketchbook. He sighed. This was going to be much harder than he expected.

* * *

"So… this is all?" Kazuto asked, looking over the paper size of a typical notebook. It had some of his personal details written on it, like name, date of birth and hometown and a single large stamp in shape of a cone and a bird in flight. He'd been told that the bird was supposed to be a falcon, but more than anything, it looked like an under detailed pigeon. There was some miniature text written under it and Kazuto had already read through the four tiny lines, but none of them had answered any of his questions. Thus, he kept spinning the piece of paper and looking at it from all sides, as if expecting he'd suddenly find something that hadn't been there before.

"And just what were you expecting?" asked Klein, the only person keeping him company on the wooden balcony while everyone else had gone to pack their belongings for the early morning trip. "Something like your graduation paper?"

Kazuto shook his head. "Nothing like that. It's just… we had to come all the way here because of this? I guess I was expecting something more. Why do we even need it? It's just an ordinary piece of paper."

"It's an ordinary piece of paper, yes, but without it, we can't get in Algade."

"Why not? It's not like they have guards stationed right outside the walls. They don't even have the walls! How can they stop you from entering on a horse? How will they even know if you're not a citizen of Algade?" Kazuto huffed. Then his mouth opened as a thought came to him and he looked at Klein with wide eyes. "It can't be the guards are walking around the streets, demanding some kind of identification papers all the time and then arresting people who don't have them," he breathed.

Klein merely raised an eyebrow, taking a gulp of the beer he held in his hand. "Where do you get those ideas? First the rebels, now this. I can understand you'd want something more extraordinary, but really, you're looking at the wrong place."

"But…" Kazuto trailed off as the older man took another long gulp of beer, seemingly savouring the taste.

"Where is the right place, then?" he asked.

"Eh? What?"

"Well, you said I'm looking at the wrong place, that means there's obviously a right one, too. So where is it?"

"Does there have to be?" Klein asked, but there was the distinct exasperation in his voice.

"Yes," Kazuto replied, but that was when his eyes fell on the car entering the hotel yard, a roofless, four-wheeled machine with lights already on, despite the fact that the last traces of the sun could still be seen in the far west. The driver, a man who ought to be at least in his fifties, parked it near the entrance to the hotel, exiting only after making sure that roaring of the engine stopped completely.

Kazuto stared at the vehicle, its black color reflecting light and its four seats apparently made of quality leather. He tried to see beyond it, to get a look at the steering wheel and other controls, but from where he was leaned on the wooden railing, he couldn't see anything.

"How do they work?" he breathed out. "They looks so different. Are they electric like Lord Schuberg's or are they powered by… umm… how was it called… internal combustion engine? Yes, I think that's it. Is that how it works?"

He looked to Klein in search for an answer, but blinked when he merely covered his eyes. "What?"

Klein sighed. "How do you even know that? You're what? Fourteen?"

"Thirteen," Kazuto corrected. "And our physics professor back in school talked a lot about vehicles and how much he wanted to buy one. He knew to list every single part that went into building them and even wanted to try building one for himself. It was really interesting."

"Eeeh? You had that Nishida-san as your physics professor? I thought he retired."

"Umm… that was in year five."

"And you remember all that from your fifth year?"

"It was interesting. I just wish I got to ride in one." Kazuto sighed wistfully. "They're faster than horses."

"That they certainly are."

Both Kazuto and Klein's head turned towards the porch where the driver stood, graying hair sticking out under the old navy hat. Looking at what he was wearing, Kazuto had to wonder how he wasn't sweating in that dark blazer. Now that it was evening, it wasn't really that hot, but a blazer still felt a bit too much.

"I cannot offer you a ride at present, but if you're interested, you can go in and have a look," he said. "Just don't try to start the engine on your own."

"H-hey, Jii-san, are you sure of that?" Klein asked, but his words were lost to Kazuto's bubbling excitement.

"I can? Really?" Once the old man gave a nod of assent, it was all Kazuto could do not to dash right in. "Thank you!" he shouted. He could hear Klein sigh somewhere behind him and he could hear the old man chuckle, but none of that really registered fully.

He was too busy trying to figure out how to open the door to the drivers seat. It turned out to be easy enough and he climbed into the driver's seat, with wide eyes observing the levers, the steering wheel and everything else that made up the interior of the automobile.

"How fast can it go?" he asked in excitement.

"A lot faster than you'd think," the older man replied with a wink.

Kazuto opened his mouth to ask yet another question, but whatever did come out, it was lost to Klein's shout.

"Oi, Kazuto! We'll miss dinner at this rate! Everyone's waiting for us!"

The boy gave a sad look to the controls before scrambling out of there. "Thank you," he told the old man. It earned him a pat on the head, something he escaped fast enough. Still, he grinned. "It's really amazing."

The old man didn't say a word, only giving them a polite nod. It was once they were about to close the door of the hotel that the man said anything, but even then, Kazuto barely caught it. It sounded very much like "Have a pleasant meal."

"Gotta wash our hands first," Klein reminded him, to which Kazuto grinned.

"Umm, hey, Klein," he said.

"Mm?"

"You mentioned we should reach Algade tomorrow?"

"If everything goes according to plan, then we'll get there sometime at night, yes."

"So… what are we going to do? Eugeo and I, I mean. It's the third day of the eighth month and if we reach Algade tomorrow… Well, you know… entrance exams are on the sixteenth."

He looked at the older man questioningly when he failed to give a verbal response. It was no wonder, because the look on Klein's face was not that far from being utterly flabbergasted.

"Sixteenth… as, you mean, you've got two more weeks?" Klein repeated.

Kazuto nodded, uncertain about the exact reason Klein's face suddenly seemed to lose all its color.

"Then why…? Why…?" his mouth hung open, eyes wide. Kazuto scratched the back of his head.

"What why?"

"But… you…" he pointed his finger at Kazuto, before finally rolling his eyes and letting his head drop. "No, never mind. Midori-san is a cruel, cruel person."

"Mom? Really? What did she do?"

"No, never mind. Don't worry, we'll think of something. Anyway, we should probably hurry it up now. I'm hungry, too."

Kazuto nodded in agreement, washing his hands in silence. However, even after the flow of water stopped, the sound was still there, as if mixed with a sound of rustling leaves and pressure in his ears as though he'd climbed an incredibly high mountain. It was gone a few moments later, but the cowering of his skin was evidence that it had not been just a trick of his mind.

He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck and the cold sweat running down his back, but there was no going back now. He followed Klein in silence, hoping against hope that he was wrong and that it had been just a trick of his paranoid mind.

The sounds around him dulled down slowly and he was barely able to make out the differences between the conversations going in the hallway from the ones going on in the dining room he'd just entered. He saw Issin walking their way, opening his mouth to say something, though he could only make up bits and pieces. He was still too far.

"Eugeo… upstairs… go pick him up?"

Kazuto nodded, not sure what he was agreeing with at all.

"Don't take too long, dinner will get cold."

He nodded, giving what he hoped looked like a smile before turning and walking towards the staircase. It was easier now, when there was no multiple sounds coming from all directions to confuse him, but if experience had taught him anything, it was that from this point, things would only get worse.

And they did. He hadn't even finished climbing the stairs when the first signs of dizziness came. The edges of his vision blurred and climbing had suddenly become a lot more difficult than it had ever been before. He made it somehow, using the railing to help him move forward and not end up tumbling back. Thankfully, there were in total six rooms on the first floor and the one that belonged to him and Eugeo was the second one on the left from the staircase.

He got to it fast enough, but he stopped before reaching for the door knob. The promise he made to his mother now strangled him, the idea of sharing exactly what was going on with him stopping him from making an actual move to open the door.

He gripped it the moment it started moving around, the knob suddenly being the only thing helping him keep his balance. He took a deep breath and another, before twisting the knob and making a hesitant step inside.

_I'm not breaking my promise, I swear. Just delaying it… a bit…_

"Hey, Eugeo… dinner time," he said.

His friend's voice sounded muted, but as the room lacked any other sounds, Kazuto could make out the words, though only barely.

"Right. I'll go down in a minute, just to finish this."

Kazuto nodded, but it went unnoticed. Eugeo was too busy focusing on his sketchbook to notice anything immediately wrong and Kazuto was grateful. It saved him from having to explain exactly what was going on.

Instead, he took the opportunity to collapse on his bed. He didn't think he'd be able to make it back downstairs, not anytime soon.

"Are you not going? Hey, Kazuto?"

"I'm… not hungry. Later, maybe."

"Are you sure? Hey, is everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just sleepy. I'll come soon."

He didn't see how Eugeo reacted to that. He barely made out the sound of the door closing, taking it as a cue to make a last ditch effort to lie down on his back. The spinning didn't stop, though. If anything, it got worse, especially in the moment he actually tried to open his eyes.

He should have known it was going to happen. It had only been a matter of time, anyway. The so called attacks typically happened every two or three weeks, the shortest time in between being nine days and the longest exactly four weeks and the last one had happened over two weeks ago.

_Twenty minutes… please, don't last longer than that… _

It was the only thing left to pray for. Anything more than that would be too much to hope for.

* * *

"… _so, hopefully, by the time this letter reaches you, you'll have made the progress you've been striving for._

"_Love, Asuna."_

That should work, Asuna thought as she bent the letter and placed in an envelope. She hesitated a moment, her hand reaching for her personal seal, before she changed her mind and took the simplest one with no scribings on it whatsoever.

The seal done, she glanced at another letter spread out before her and searched for the address written in the text, the address to which her letter should be sent to.

The envelope had no name written on it, nor did it hold any information about the sender. If she did this right, there would be no reason for anyone to question who it was for and for what reason it was being sent. It was the only hope Asuna had that things would not go wrong, that the letter would not be traced by anyone from the family.

Knock on the door startled her more than it usually would have and she nearly dropped the letter.

"Y-yes?" she said, holding her hand to her heart.

"Lady Asuna, you have a visitor."

Asuna calmed her breathing before placing the letter in the drawer. "Yes, let them come in, please."

Helliana would have never let anyone in had she not personally have met them before, which meant that whoever it was visiting now, it was somebody known to both Lady Asuna Yuuki and the servant Helliana Asper.

When the door opened to reveal a familiar brunette, Asuna had to wonder why she ever had any doubt she'd show up. Unfortunately, as glad as she was about that particular visit, the visitor herself looked rather ticked off for one reason or another, if the mix of a frown and a pout on her face was anything to go by.

"Ah, Rika-chan." Asuna smiled.

"Don't you Rika-chan to me! What is the meaning of this, Asuna? You haven't been home for a month, and you're already leaving? Tell me that it's a joke! Tell me that it's a really, really lame joke, right there!"

Asuna held the finger to her lip, giving the best smile of apology that she could. "I'm sorry, but it's true. I'm sorry I haven't mentioned anything before."

"You damn right should be!" Rika yelled. "You're going to miss my birthday party!"

Asuna froze for a moment, lips opened in a futile attempt to explain the situation, but the words simply weren't coming out. No excuse would ever work in a situation like this, especially not after she had already missed the same event last year.

She hung her head, honor being the only thing stopping her from begging for forgiveness on her knees.

"I'm sorry, Rika-chan. As the second ranked student, like it or not, I have to attend the entrance exams for the first years. I still have ten days before I have to go and help organize everything, but I'm honestly sorry that I won't be able to attend your party."

"This makes it second year in a row," Rika said flatly.

"I know. That's why I was intending to make it up to you before I go. You don't have anything planned on ninth of August?"

Rika bit her lip and crossed her arms. "No, I suppose not. What did you have in mind?"

Asuna lifted her head and gave her the brightest grin she could manage. "If I tell you now, it wouldn't be much of a surprise, now would it?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Then, that's settled. Can you please go wait for me downstairs now? I'll be with you in just a minute, Liz-chan."

Rika raised an eyebrow at that. "What are you planning, exactly?"

"Don't worry. I just have a letter to send, and then we'll go take a walk. You don't mind, right?"

"No, no. Just be quick about it. I'll wait for you in the living room."

Asuna smiled brightly, but she didn't move until the door of her room closed. Finally, she opened the drawer and took the letter, holding it fondly with both hands. She gave it a long look, hoping that at least it got some of what she had to say to the one person she wanted to see more than anyone, yet couldn't.

_I hope you're alright, Nii-san. Wherever you are._

She placed the letter in her handbag, before running over to the double-door of her large wardrobe. "Let's see… Rika-chan is going to be really upset if I don't wear something cute… ah, yes, this will work."

She smiled, picking out some of the new clothes she'd gotten as a present for completing her first year in Aincrad as well as she had. That didn't, even for a moment, help her let go of the bad feeling she had in the back of her mind, one that made her stomach twist every once in a while.

_I really, really hope you're alright._


End file.
